A cutting-edge look at how accelerating financial change, from the end of cash to the rise of cryptocurrencies, will transform economies for better and worse.The transformation of money will fundamentally rewrite how ordinary people live. Above all, Prasad foresees the end of physical cash. The driving force won’t be phones or credit cards but rather […]
People in a resilient society are able to bounce back from shocks, such as pandemics and economic crises.The Resilient Society, by Princeton University economist Markus Brunnermeier, describes how individuals, institutions, and nations can successfully navigate a dynamic, globalized economy filled with unknown risks. Lacking resilience, societies, families, and individuals can reach tipping points from which […]
The former dean of the Yale School of Management and Undersecretary of Commerce in the Clinton administration chronicles the 1971 August meeting at Camp David, where President Nixon unilaterally ended the last vestiges of the gold standard—breaking the link between gold and the dollar—transforming the entire global monetary system. Based on extensive historical research and […]
The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a massive increase in global debt levels and exacerbated the trade-offs between the benefits and costs of accumulating government debt. This paper examines these trade-offs by putting the recent debt boom into a historical context.
Analyzing public debt in low-income developing countries (LIDCs) is like solving a puzzle with many missing pieces. Forty percent of LIDCs have not published any sovereign debt data in the last two years. Public debt data disclosed in different publications show discrepancies of up to 30 percent of GDP across sources, and relative to the […]
A new report, titled Distributional Impacts of COVID-19 in the Middle East and North Africa Region, asks: How does COVID-19 affect the welfare of individuals and households in MENA, and what are the key issues that policy makers should focus on to enable a quick and sustained economic convalescence? The analysis of newly gathered primary […]
Debt in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) is at its highest level in half a century. In about nine out of 10 EMDEs, debt is higher now than it was in 2010 and, in half of the EMDEs, debt is more than 30 percentage points of gross domestic product higher. Historically, elevated debt levels […]
This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on debt, puts recent debt developments and prospects in historical context, and analyzes new policy challenges associated with debt resolution.
The global recovery is set to decelerate amid continued COVID-19 flare-ups, diminished policy support, and lingering supply bottlenecks. The outlook is clouded by various downside risks, including new virus variants, unanchored inflation expectations, and financial stress. If some countries eventually require debt restructuring, the recovery will be more difficult to achieve than in the past. […]
Digital technology is now so pervasive that it’s very hard to escape its influence, and with that growth comes fear. But whatever the news has told you about data and technology, think again. Data expert and tech insider Sam Gilbert shows that, actually, this data revolution could be the best thing that ever happened to […]