September 2020

24Sep

Impact of Fintech Development on Savings, Borrowing and Remittances: A Comparative Study of Emerging Economies

By Angela Lyons, Josephine Kass-Hanna, Ana Polato e Fava Fintech is rapidly changing the landscape for financial services in terms of accessibility and affordability, especially in this post-COVID era. Digital finance now has the potential to be a game changer for the nearly two billion financially excluded persons in the developing and emerging world. Non-bank providers such as mobile money services have expanded and are leapfrogging ahead of conventional banking services. This study investigates the linkages between fintech development...

September 24, 2020
Articles, Innovation, ,
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15Sep

Demographic Obstacles to European Growth

By Thomas F. Cooley, Espen Henriksen, Charlie Nusbaum Since the early 1990's the growth rates of the four largest European economies -- France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom -- have slowed. This persistent slowdown suggests a low-frequency structural change is at work. A combination of longer individual life expectancies and declining fertility have led to gradually aging populations. Growth accounting identifies the following five sources of economic growth: total factor productivity, capital deepening, labor supply on...

September 15, 2020
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, , ,
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August 2020

25Aug

Pakistan. The politics of pension reform

Last week, Prime Minister Imran Khan expressed his resolve to address the pension issue. It is the first time the issue of pension has found a space on the national policy radar and caught the sitting PM’s attention. To address the pension problem, the PM must sort out its economics, politics and process. I have written extensively on the economics and process, but not as much on politics. Nonetheless, politics remains the thorniest part. Considering that any reform could...

August 25, 2020
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21Aug

Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains

By World Bank Global value chains (GVCs) powered the surge of international trade after 1990 and now account for almost half of all trade. This shift enabled an unprecedented economic convergence: poor countries grew rapidly and began to catch up with richer countries. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, however, the growth of trade has been sluggish and the expansion of GVCs has stalled. Meanwhile, serious threats have emerged to the model of trade-led growth. New technologies could draw production...

August 21, 2020
Books, System Sustainability,
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07Aug

A New World Post COVID-19: Lessons for Business, the Finance Industry and Policy Makers

By Monica Billio, Simone Varotto Pandemics are disruptive events that have profound consequences for society and the economy. This volume aims to present an analysis of the economic impact of COVID-19 and its likely consequences for our future. This is achieved by drawing from the expertise of authors who specialize in a wide range of fields including fiscal and monetary policy, banking, financial markets, pensions and insurance, artificial intelligence and big data, climate change, labor market, travel, tourism and...

August 7, 2020
Articles, Pension design, System Sustainability, ,
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July 2020

09Jul

PRTs could help plug UK infrastructure ‘mega-gap’ – L&G

Insurers and other pension risk transfer (PRT) providers are "ready" to invest up to £190bn of pension money into UK infrastructure over the next decade, analysis by Legal & General (L&G) has found. This would plug almost a fifth of the UK’s infrastructure funding “mega-gap”, which, according to the firm, is likely to be as much as £1trn as regions across the UK "call out for greater investment to support our society’s needs”. The report, The power of pensions:...

July 9, 2020
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08Jul

Pakistan caps pensions and salaries on brink of Covid-19 financial collapse

Pakistan’s financial woes are going from bad to worse as the national fiscal deficit surges to over 7% of gross domestic product (GDP) and could breach 9-10% as state revenues dry up amid Covid-19 economic devastation. That’s raising questions among analysts and business executives of whether the country is headed towards a budgetary blowout-induced financial collapse. Approved by the National Assembly on June 29, Pakistan’s 2020-21 budget is notable for a 3.4 trillion rupees (US$20.7 billion) fiscal gap that...

July 8, 2020
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June 2020
26Jun

Financing Africa’s Development: Paths to Sustainable Economic Growth

By Diery Seck This book examines the impact of financing on Africa’s economic development. By exploring various financial instruments including the role of alternative sources of funding like migrant remittances and illicit flows, it analyses the role of financing for Africa’s macroeconomic development and other development indicators such as infrastructure, transport, global trade, industrialisation, social services, external indebtedness and governance. By presenting and examining case studies on various African countries and regions, the respective contributions investigate the capacity...

June 26, 2020
Books, Labor Market, System Sustainability, ,
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26Jun

Emerging economies and COVID-19 Closing in a world of informal and small companies

By Laura Alfaro, Oscar Becerra, Marcela Eslava Emerging economies are characterized by an extremely high prevalence of informality, smallfirm employment and jobs not fit for working from home. These features factor into how the COVID-19 crisis has affected the economy. We develop a framework that, based on accounting identities and actual data, quantifies potential job and income losses during the crisis and recovery for economies with different economic organization structures. Our analysis incorporates differential exposure of jobs across categories...

June 26, 2020
Articles, System Sustainability, , , , ,
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20Jun

Journal of Pension Economics & Finance

By: Monika Bütler, Olivia S. Mitchell, J. Michael Orszag. The Journal of Pension Economics and Finance (JPEF) is the only academic journal focusing on the economics and finance of pensions and retirement income. The ageing population, together with the shrinking workforce, heralds a growing pensions crisis, which has become a key public policy issue in developed countries and elsewhere. JPEF provides a valuable and influential forum for international debate in this area. The journal is co-sponsored by the International Organisation of Pension Supervisors...

June 20, 2020
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