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 […]
From Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen, a long-awaited memoir about home, belonging, inequality, and identity, recounting a singular life devoted to betterment of humanity.In Home in the World, these “homes” collectively form an unparalleled and profoundly truthful vision of twentieth- and twenty-first-century life. Here Sen, “one of the most distinguished minds of our time”, interweaves […]
This is the story of a race – not against other vaccines or other scientists, but against a deadly and devastating virus. On 1 January 2020, Sarah Gilbert, Professor of Vaccinology at Oxford University, read an article about four people in China with a strange pneumonia. Within two weeks, she and her team had designed […]
For years economists have spoken of ‘Africa rising’, and despite the global financial crisis, Africa continues to host some of the fastest growing economies in the world.Africa’s Shadow Rise however argues that the continent’s apparent economic ‘rise’ is essentially a mirage, driven by developments elsewhere – most particularly the expansion in China’s economy. While many […]
With empathy and breadth, MacGillis demonstrates the hidden human costs of the other inequality—not the growing gap between rich and poor, but the gap between the country’s winning and losing regions. The result is an intimate account of contemporary capitalism: its drive to innovate, its dark, pitiless magic, its remaking of America with every click.