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Education Employment Featured World

Revisiting the consequences of job displacement

Decades of research have confirmed that job displacement causes significant and persistent earnings losses. This column presents new evidence from workers displaced during firm closures in West Germany between 2000 and 2005 which suggests that these losses are in fact much more heterogeneous than previously documented, and that the large average losses documented in previous […]

Economy Banking Featured Finance

Global shocks, institutional development, and trade restrictions: Learning from crises and recoveries between 1990 and 2022

During the past 20 years, the world economy has suffered two major crises in the form of the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. This column identifies the turning points of recessions and expansions in 101 advanced and developing economies between 1990 and 2022 and analyses the drivers of economic recovery. Across the sample, […]

Economy Featured Finance News World

Filtering labour market data optimally to detect recessions early and accurately

The timely detection of recessions is critical for policymakers to make informed decisions. This column presents an algorithm for detecting recessions early using labour market data. By combining unemployment and vacancy rates, it shows that a less noisy signal can be obtained compared to relying on a single measure like industrial production. Current official prediction […]

Economy Featured Lifestyle News World

Stanley Fischer and the Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics: A tribute

Stanley Fischer, the World Bank’s chief economist from January 1988 to August 1990, passed away on May 31, 2025. Stan Fischer’s immense professional contributions to modern macroeconomic and monetary policy, both as faculty at MIT and in the positions he held thereafter—as the first deputy managing director of the IMF (1994-2001), in running the Bank […]

Banking Featured Finance News World

Basel endgame: Bank capital requirements and the future of international standard setting

Since the 1970s, banking regulators have worked to set minimum standards for internationally active banks. The latest agreement, Basel III, was introduced following the 2008 financial crisis, but only partially adopted by the US in 2013. This column discusses the final set of rules (‘Basel endgame’) and their potential implications for the US economy and […]

Technology Featured Finance News World

Detecting hidden state aid with machine learning

State aid regulation is crucial to ensuring competitiveness in the EU Single Market, but enforcement remains challenging. Non-compliance by member states and foreign subsidies are ongoing concerns; however, detection is difficult. This column proposes an approach to identify suspect cases of hidden state aid recipients using machine learning algorithms. The predictions allow regulators to substantially […]

Finance Banking Featured News World

The supply side of monetary policy: How floating-rate loans blunt the ECB’s fight against inflation

Central banks raise interest rates to reduce aggregate demand and bring inflation down. This column uses credit register data and product-level price data from the euro area to highlight a parallel and potentially offsetting supply-side mechanism. It shows that in markets where firms rely more heavily on floating-rate loans, the ECB’s monetary tightening had a […]

Banking Economy Featured News World

Interlocking directorates and competition in banking

The presence of directors on the boards of competing firms (‘interlocking directorates’) raises concerns about collusion. This column studies the Italian corporate loan market and exploits a reform that prohibited directors of Italian banks from sitting on multiple boards simultaneously. Comparing treated and control loans before and after the policy, it shows that the ban […]

Labour Employment Featured News World

Early job mentoring, placement, and training boost refugee integration without high costs

The number of people fleeing war and persecution worldwide has nearly tripled since the early 2010s, challenging European policymakers to ensure swift integration of asylum seekers into the labour market. This column assesses a pilot programme in Italy that provides early, personalised labour market support to asylum seekers. Even in resource-constrained settings, the early targeted […]