The reduction of CO2 emissions be possible? / Robert Douglas Cairns, Professor, McGill University

Emerging market and developing economies (EMDE) face a common set of external shocks: rising energy and food prices; tightening in global financial conditions caused by the prospect of sharper interest rate hikes and anticipation of "quantitative tightening"; and return of restrictions on mobility in China, on account of the Covid zero policy, leading to slumping in growth and weakening one of the primary growth drivers for the other EMDE. However, the impacts of those common shocks ...

L'invasion, par la Russie, de l'Ukraine, grenier à blé de la mer Noire, impacte lourdement le marché mondial de cette denrée, en premier lieu les principaux pays/clients importateurs des deux belligérants. L'objet de cette étude est d'analyser les conséquences de cette guerre pour l’Afrique, continent où le pain est un aliment de base. Ce qui nous conduit, tout d'abord, à rappeler les données générales de ce marché, avec une Russie et une Ukraine respectivement au premier et cinquiè ...

Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Black Sea granary, severely impacts global wheat markets, and especially hits the two warring parties' primary importing countries/clients. This study examines impacts of this war on Africa, where bread is a basic staple. This brings us to start with a review of broad market data, with Russia and Ukraine respectively ranking first and fifth among global wheat exporters, and the European Union (EU) gaining an edge as an alternative to the U.S./Canada ...

The start of 2022 has been marked by drought, with countries around the world experiencing abnormally low levels of precipitation and dryness over the last few months. On the African continent, the intensity and duration of the droughts is wreaking havoc on economies already struggling because of the pandemic. In the eastern part of the continent, drought threatened to put countries in the Horn of Africa “on the brink of catastrophe” as late as February. In the north, Morocco is exp ...

The 2021 German federal election brought about a historic reshuffle of the political parties’ hierarchy in Europe’s biggest economy. The Social Democratic Party are back in control of the Chancellery for the first time since 2005, as part of a three-party coalition at the federal level with the Greens and the Liberals, a first in Germany’s post-war history. Now, the federal government has turned its gaze towards its founding mission: more progress. The first 100 days of the three-pa ...

The war in Ukraine is bringing substantial financial, commodity price, and supply chain shocks to the global economy. Sanctions on Russia are already having a significant impact on its financial system and its economy. Price shocks will have a global impact. Energy and commodity prices—including wheat and other grains—have risen, intensifying inflationary pressures from supply chain disruptions and the recovery from the pandemic. The push toward relative deglobalization received fro ...

The pros and the cons of regional market integration are well exemplified by the experience of Uruguay, a small, open economy in MERCOSUR, which is a highly protectionist trade bloc, dominated by Argentina and Brazil. With access to such large markets, Uruguay did raise its growth rate during the first decade of MERCOSUR, the 1990s. However, market integration as implemented in MERCOSUR was also problematic in that Uruguay suffered from the high protectionism of Argentina in the for ...