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Confusopoly unveiled: How firms use complexity to raise prices

Can entire markets strategically confuse consumers to raise prices? This column tracks the prices of nearly all mobile phone tariffs and handsets in the UK from 2010 to 2012, and finds that quality-adjusted prices rise in the early part of the sample period and decline later. Obfuscation strategies by firms appear to be the primary […]

Economy Featured Global News

Speaking of debt: Framing, guilt, and economic choices

In many Germanic languages, the word for ‘debt’ also means ‘guilt’. This column explores whether the linguistic overlap leads to greater debt aversion in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland. Using a guilt-laden term reduces willingness to borrow, lowers approval for government debt, and influences firms’ financing plans and politicians’ framing of fiscal policy. While […]

Economy Featured News World

Dollar slips as traders focus on Fed cut bets, risk sentiment improves

Markets pricing in Fed rate cuts for both October and December. The U.S. dollar slipped against a basket of peers on Wednesday after comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell bolstered bets on a series of rate cuts in coming months, while a broader improvement in risk sentiment took the shine off the greenback. Francesco […]

Economy Banking Business Featured Finance

Yen and euro struggle as Japan and France’s political dramas heat up

French political quagmire leaves euro at two-month lows. The yen stabilised on Friday but was still headed for its steepest weekly drop in a year on Friday, as the chances of a near-term rate hike faded, while the euro was rooted near two-month lows by political crisis in France. The yen edged up 0.2% to […]

Technology Climate Featured World

Greening GovTech: Digital transformation for climate action

Around the world, governments are racing to digitize services and tackle climate change. Yet too often, these efforts happen in silos—or even pull in opposite directions. While digital tools can eliminate paper-based processes, reduce travel, and streamline services, they also depend on energy-intensive data centers, growing processing needs, and generate growing volumes of e-waste if not […]

Politics Economy Featured World

Infrastructure diplomacy in the shadow of the Belt and Road: Lessons from Japan’s experience

Infrastructure diplomacy has become a central arena for strategic competition. This column examines how China’s Belt and Road Initiative has reshaped Japan’s overseas infrastructure engagement and diplomacy with participants of the initiative. It finds that Japanese project counts fell and foreign leaders visited Japan less often. To be successful, Western initiatives such as Build Back […]

Innovation Economy Featured Productivity World

Assessment of disruptive innovation in science and technology policy: Insights from meta-science research trends

Technological innovation, including disruptive innovation, is a driving force for economic growth and social change, but early identification of such technologies and assessments of their impact are challenging. This column introduces recent approaches to identifying innovative and disruptive technologies from academic literature, with an application to Japanese research. The methods can help allow policymakers to […]

Agriculture Environment Featured World

Addressing food insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa: innovations in data monitoring

Food insecurity remains a critical issue affecting millions of people across the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (MENAAP). The region faces a wide range of food security challenges—from acute conflict-related humanitarian crises in some areas to affordability concerns in others, and from high levels of economic prosperity to accompanying nutritional deficits. The food […]

Economy Featured News World

How real-time data misled policymakers during the post-COVID recovery

Preliminary data releases can diverge significantly from subsequently revised figures, complicating economic policy decisions made in real time. This column shows how real-time GDP releases understated the strength of the post-pandemic recovery in both the euro area and the United States. This distorted view painted a more pessimistic picture than subsequently revised data revealed, masking […]

Business Economy Featured World

Understanding inflation with textual analysis: How news about commodities improves predictions

Commodity prices have historically been considered leading indicators of inflation, but the relationship has weakened since the mid-1980s, making them less reliable predictors. This column analyses more than a million Reuters news articles between 2001 and 2023 to capture supply and demand dynamics in commodity markets. The findings show that text-based indicators of supply and […]