Opening Remarks - Session 2: A High-level Conversation

Scarcity of inputs and goods has been felt all over the world because of disruptions to global value chains since the beginning of the pandemic. Factory closures in China at the beginning of 2020, lockdowns in many countries and, subsequently, congestion in logistics networks for transporting goods, capacity constraints in the face of sudden increases in demand, and labor shortages, have combined to negatively affect the availability of inputs and products worldwide. Higher freight ...

Mounting inflation in the major financial centers have raised concerns about the consequences on macroeconomic stability, including the Central Bank response they might trigger. In line with official views, we argue that inflation will probably wind down. We show that core inflation remains below pre-Covid levels in most large economies. We also argue that emerging markets are now less prone to “sudden stop” phenomena, in part because many have already started the exit from accommod ...

South Africa’s economy is in crisis. Like much of the world, it has been battered by the COVID-19 pandemic when its economy has already been weakened by years of low growth, high unemployment and rising inequality after the global financial crisis of 2007-08. At this difficult juncture, the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) offers it the opportunity of becoming a continental growth pole, not just a regional growth pole which it is already. This opportunity could not have c ...

En attribuant le Prix Nobel d'économie 2021 à trois représentants de l'économie expérimentale, D. Card, de Princeton, J. Angrist, du MIT et Imbens, de Princeton, le jury a non seulement distingué trois de ses meilleurs représentants, mais a aussi confirmé la montée en puissance de cette discipline, qui constitue à elle seule une révolution au sein de la science économique, remettant en cause les modèles théoriques sur lesquels elle s'était construite. Cette économie expérimentale vi ...

The music was as dramatic and emotional as the adventure. Dennis Tito, named by BBC news “the spaceman” (April 28, 2001) on his personal way to heaven—for him the International Space Station (ISS)408 kilometers above earth .The American mega-investor, who paid about 20 million dollars to realize the “dream born in a poor child”, surviving with his Italian family of immigrants in the New York borough Bronx, drowned the noise of the lifting rocket by opera music of his choice, Aida an ...

In the World Economic Outlook, published October 12, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) slightly lowered its forecast for global economic growth this year to 5.9%, while maintaining a forecast of 4.9% for 2022. It also emphasized the “divergence” in the pace and extent of economic recovery in different countries. Two factors are highlighted in explaining the divergence. First, there are the different paces and extent of vaccination in different countries, that is, the ‘Great Vac ...

Annoncé le 16 septembre dernier, l’arrêt définitif de l’enquête annuelle sur le climat des affaires est une erreur. Véritable référence pour l’analyse économique et entrepreneuriale dans 190 pays, c’est un instrument perfectible, mais indispensable. Dans la foulée d’une enquête indépendante menée par le cabinet d’avocats WilmerHale, qui pointait les pressions inopportunes exercées par la Chine et par d’autres pays lors de la préparation de son rapport annuel Doing Business, la Banq ...