From the Multilateral Investment Fund Trends blog Latin America and the Caribbean is the most violent region in the world, with no fewer than five of its major cities experiencing more than 100 homicides per 100,000 people each year, according to the most recent Global Study on Homicide. While the pattern of violence varies across different […]
Russian President Vladimir Putin has hailed the new BRICS contingent reserve arrangement (CRA) as a substitute for the IMF, saying that it “creates the foundation for an effective protection of our national economies from a crisis in financial markets.” But does it? Under the terms of the arrangement, China can, without being on an IMF […]
By Ian Parry: (Versions in Español, 中文, Français, and Русский) Energy plays a critical role in the functioning of modern economies. At the same time, it’s at the heart of many of today’s pressing environmental concerns—from global warming (predicted to reach around 3–4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century) and outdoor air pollution (causing over three million premature deaths […]
By Chris Dalby: From changing the nature of global politics to being a force for human rights, the announcement of the new BRICS development bank has been met with feverish anticipation by the global economic community. Its supporters have written that it will free the world from the grip of the U.S. dollar as reserve currency, while […]
By Chris Dalby: As the heir-in-waiting to the title of world’s largest economy, China finds itself in a strange position in terms of its oil consumption. In September 2013, China became the biggest net importer of crude, beating out the U.S. for the first time. This came as no surprise, given how rapidly China’s thirst […]
Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (the “BRICS”) made a splash last week with the official launch of their new development bank. The backers made no secret of their intention to challenge the way things are done in the established international financial and monetary architecture. The irony is that India and China are the […]
Leaders of the BRICS–Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa–meet in Rio today to swap World Cup stories and launch a long-discussed “BRICS Bank.” The bank creates two funds–a development lending facility (New Development Bank or NDB) backed by $50 billion in capital ($10 billion from each of the BRICs), and a $100 billion rescue […]
By Sanjeev Gupta and Enrique Flores: The Finance Minister answers her mobile. On the line is the Minister of Energy, who informs her that the country has struck oil and that he expects revenues from its sale to start flowing into the budget in the coming four years. While excited by the prospects of higher revenues—indeed the average […]
There has been a lot of agonizing lately about slowing economic growth. Some of it understandably laments the slow recovery from the Great Recession, but the more interesting part concerns long-term growth prospects. Brad DeLong has recently written a thorough review of the stagnation literature under the title “Is Economic Growth Getting Harder? If so, […]
By Romain Duval: In recent decades, trade integration within Asia has increased more than in other regions. In valued-added terms, intraregional trade grew on average by over 10 percent a year from 1990 to 2012, twice the pace seen outside of Asia. Likewise, financial integration within the region has started to catch up, although it still lags […]