China’s Trade Dominance: Good Macro or Strategic Industrial Policies?
China recorded a record $1.2 trillion trade surplus in 2025, equal to roughly 6 % of its GDP. The surplus stemmed from a broad-based export expansion across multiple sectors, while import growth remained limited to commodities. Analysts link this outcome to both macroeconomic conditions and targeted industrial policies that boosted export competitiveness. The findings suggest policy interventions played a decisive role alongside traditional drivers.
Regulatory Reform for Sustainable Consumption in the FMCG Sector: The Case of Low TFM Soap Bar
The IPPR paper argues that science‑based regulatory reform can boost resource efficiency in India’s FMCG sector, using a low‑Total Fatty Matter (TFM) soap bar as a case study. Reducing TFM—derived mainly from palm oil—through alternative structurants can maintain product performance...
A User’s Guide to Reducing the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet
Authors Anderson, Barbarino, Diercks and Miran outline a menu of policy tools that could shrink the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet by roughly $1.2‑$2.1 trillion. They stress that any reduction would require extensive rule‑making and would likely take at least a year...
The Next Era of Financial System Innovation: Drawing Lessons From Financial History
Reserve Bank of Australia Deputy Governor Brad Jones outlined the next wave of financial innovation—tokenisation and blockchain—through Project Acacia, an experiment to improve wholesale market efficiency. He highlighted three enabling conditions: a compelling economic case, suitable technology, and coordinated public‑private...
The Rise of the Modern Hospital and Early-Life Health: Evidence From the Hill-Burton Act
The Hill‑Burton Act funded over 300,000 new hospital beds between 1948 and 1975, doubling U.S. hospital capacity. This public‑sector expansion coincided with a sharp decline in out‑of‑hospital births, falling from 14% to 1%, and a 50% reduction in infant mortality....
Global Banking and Geopolitics Through Time
A new BIS paper analyzes how geopolitical events shape cross‑border bank credit from 1977 to 2024. Using confidential International Banking Statistics, the study finds that negative shocks—such as Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine—reduce credit flows between opposing geopolitical blocs by...
BISTRO: A “ChatGPT” For Time Series
Researchers Batuhan Koyuncu, Byeungchun Kwon, Marco Jacopo Lombardi, Fernando Perez‑Cruz and Hyun Song Shin unveiled BISTRO, a transformer‑based model designed to forecast macroeconomic time series. Trained on the Bank for International Settlements' extensive macro data, BISTRO acts like a ChatGPT...
Safe Until Crisis: What 300 Years of Wars Reveal About Government Debt Safety
A new VoxEU column by Jiang, Lustig, Van Nieuwerburgh and Xiaolan examines three centuries of U.S. and U.K. war and pandemic episodes. Their analysis shows that sovereign bonds, traditionally viewed as safe havens, have repeatedly suffered large real‑term losses during...
International Comparison of Physician Incomes
A new NBER paper analyzes physician earnings in the United States, Canada, Sweden, and the Netherlands using tax‑file data. It finds that doctors rank among the top earners in each country, with U.S. physicians earning the highest absolute salaries. The...
From Ports to Prices: The Inflationary Effects of Global Supply Chain Disruptions
IMF economists published a paper quantifying how shipping delays translate into consumer price inflation. By constructing a port‑to‑port shipping time index from AIS maritime data and linking it to granular trade and price information, they find that a 100‑hour delay...
Book Review: The Routledge Companion to Literature and Economics Edited by Matt Seybold and Michelle Chihara. 2019. Routledge.
The Routledge Companion to Literature and Economics, edited by Matt Seybold and Michelle Chihara, assembles 38 essays that map literary representations of economic ideas from medieval texts to the 2008 financial crisis. The volume argues that modern economics has become...
The Macroeconomic Consequences of Undermining Central Bank Independence: Evidence From Governor Transitions
An IMF study of 132 central‑bank governor transitions across 28 economies finds that politically motivated appointments erode independence and alter macro outcomes. Such governors are linked to higher, more volatile inflation and cause professional forecasters to anticipate dovish policy. Following...
Rethinking India’s Healthcare System: Design Is the Main Issue
India’s health crisis stems more from systemic design flaws than from a lack of funding. The current insurance and financing structures incentivize hospitalization, leaving primary care under‑developed and driving high out‑of‑pocket costs. Research cited by Nachiket Mor shows that, when...
Europe’s Digital Autonomy – Between Fault Lines and Vault Lines
In a recent BIS speech, Steven Maijoor warned that Europe’s digital ecosystem is riddled with “fault lines” – hidden dependencies on foreign technology that could trigger sudden disruptions. He contrasted these cracks with “vault lines,” deliberate architectural safeguards that can absorb...
ChatGPT Vs. DeepSeek: What 5,000 Chinese Stocks Reveal About AI’s Limits
Harvard Business School researchers examined how ChatGPT and China‑based DeepSeek evaluate roughly 5,000 Chinese publicly listed firms. The study found a pronounced “foreign bias”: ChatGPT consistently issued higher price targets and more buy recommendations than DeepSeek, yet its forecasts were...
Taxes on Smoking, Drinking, and Sugar Should Keep Tab on the Emerging Alternatives
Excise taxes on alcohol, tobacco and sugar remain a key tool for raising revenue and improving public health, especially in low‑income nations. However, the rapid emergence of products such as e‑cigarettes, nicotine pouches and low‑alcohol beverages is exposing gaps in...
RTI @20 : How India’s Right To Information Act Was Gradually Weakened
The Right to Information (RTI) Act, enacted in 2005, initially empowered Indian citizens, journalists, and activists to demand government data, sparking a wave of transparency. Over the past two decades, a series of legislative amendments and administrative reforms have expanded...
Transformative Central Banker: Bank of Korea Governor Chang Yong Rhee
Bank of Korea Governor Chang Yong Rhee, appointed in April 2022, argues that central banks must broaden their remit beyond pure monetary policy. He has transformed the BoK into a more public‑facing institution, adding video studios, visualizations, staff media training...
Building Businesses and Firms that Build “Made in Europe” Brands
Isabel Schnabel, ECB executive board member, urged the EU to create a unified "28th regime" that gives firms seamless access to the entire Single Market. She argued that Europe’s main deficit is scale, not innovation, and that internal regulatory barriers...
Profile of Myrto Kalouptsidi: How Shipping and Industrial Policy Shapes the Global Economy
Myrto Kalouptsidi, a Harvard economist highlighted in the IMF’s *Finance and Development*, studies how maritime shipping underpins roughly $20 trillion of annual global trade. Her research reveals that shipping costs and industrial policies directly shape trade patterns, supply‑chain resilience, and the...
History of RBI Communications
In early 2026 the Reserve Bank of India launched its first official podcast, "RBI Talks Paisa to Policy," building on a 2025 web‑series released to celebrate the institution’s 90‑year anniversary. Both initiatives expand RBI’s communications toolkit, which has evolved from...
A Brief History of Bank Notes in the United States and some Lessons for Stablecoins
Mark Carlson’s Federal Reserve note examines the era before the Fed when U.S. commercial banks issued their own paper money, backed by a mix of bank assets and government bonds. The piece highlights how those privately‑issued notes depended on a...
Book Review: India’s High-Tech Leap
Sunil Mani’s new book India’s High‑Tech Leap reviews the rise of six high‑tech sectors—pharmaceuticals, software services, COVID‑19 vaccines, wind turbines, solar photovoltaics and electric vehicles—under India’s Make‑in‑India and Atmanirbhar Bharat initiatives. He credits government intervention and public‑private collaboration for early successes but flags...
Operationalizing AI at the Federal Reserve
Federal Reserve Governor Waller outlined a systematic rollout of artificial intelligence across the central bank. The Fed has built a common, general‑purpose AI platform that all Reserve Bank employees can access for drafting, summarizing, and analysis. Specialized AI tools support...
What India’s New Inflation Data Is Hiding | The Great Confusing CPI (Consumer Price Index) Reset
India has unveiled a revamped Consumer Price Index, shifting the base year from 2012 to 2024 and overhauling the basket composition and weighting methodology. The new series shows a headline retail inflation of 2.75% in January 2026, markedly lower than...
Structural Change—Canada at a Crossroads
Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem warned that Canada faces deep structural shifts as U.S. protectionism, rapid AI adoption, and demographic aging reshape the economy. He noted the central bank kept its policy rate at 2¼ % while highlighting heightened uncertainty around...
A Brief Illustrated History of the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet: 1914-2026
The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet has undergone dramatic swings since its 1914 inception, expanding modestly for decades before exploding after the 2008 financial crisis. Between 2008 and 2022 the sheet grew from roughly $0.9 trillion to over $9 trillion, driven by large‑scale...
Bulgarian Central Bank Deputy Governor Appointed Prime Minister
President Iliana Iotova appointed suspended Bulgarian National Bank deputy governor Andrey Gurov as interim prime minister, invoking a constitutional rule that limits caretaker‑PM candidates to ten senior officials. Gurov’s selection follows an anti‑corruption finding that barred him from his central‑bank...
Finally, CPI Inflation Has a New Base Year
India's Statistics Ministry has finally updated the consumer price index (CPI) base year, moving it from 2012 to 2024 using the 2023‑24 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey. The revision expands the index from six to twelve COICOP‑aligned divisions and introduces All‑India...
How Federal Reserve’s Decentralised Structure Produced New Ideas on Banking Policy
Recent research by Michael Bordo and Edward Prescott shows that the Federal Reserve’s decentralized structure generated fresh banking‑policy ideas in the 1950s and 1960s. In response to industry consolidation and legal reforms, the Board and regional Reserve Banks hired industrial‑organization...