We face significant challenges: climate change, COVID-19, an ageing population, inequality, both within and between countries, and the pace of technological change, itself leading to further inequality. All are critical, but the one that seems to pose an existential threat to humanity –and so is slowly leading to coordinated action –is climate change. There have …
Quantitative Easing and the risks of rising wealth inequality
In the face of unprecedented actions to safeguard public health, government-mandated lockdowns have seen global economies in free-fall. In response, central banks have embarked on several innovative monetary and fiscal measures. Official short-term interest rates were cut to record lows in most advanced economies. In some jurisdictions, like in the EU and Japan, rates have …
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Capital markets are increasingly unmoored from the real economy
Imbalances in the financial sector or the real economy – the usual trigger for recessions – have been markedly absent from the current global economic downturn. Instead, the cause this time was a government-mandated shutdown of the economy owing to a global health crisis. The end of shutdown will see economic growth resume (as indeed …
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