For a while this spring, it seemed – at least to European residents – that the vaccine nationalism that had led European governments to procure vaccines that had been rapidly produced with government support and fast-tracked official approval, had paid…
Following years of negotiations, most nations in the world now appear to be willing to align their corporate tax regimes to prevent multinationals from evading taxation in the jurisdictions in which they operate. They have now tentatively agreed on the…
In early June Finance Ministers and central bank governors of the G7 met over two days in London, as a prequel to the meeting of heads of states of the grouping a week later. The meet was of special significance.…
The G-7 meeting that has just concluded has promised to donate one billion doses of anti-Covid vaccine to the rest of the world, consisting primarily of the so-called “developing” countries. The US has promised 500 million doses, Britain 100 million…
A spade must be called a spade. The biggest ally of the coronavirus today as it decimates mankind is the institution of capitalist property rights. The Economist estimates that the actual death-toll across the world from the virus so far…
The Biden administration’s decision to stop opposing a proposed COVID-19 waiver of certain intellectual-property rights under World Trade Organization rules is a welcome move. But ending the pandemic also requires scaling up knowledge and technology transfer, as well as public…
It is the second year running in which the IMF and the World Bank have been forced by the Covid pandemic to hold their annual Spring Meetings online. But this time there was slight cause for optimism. Signs of a…
Having recovered from their lows touched early or mid-2020, food prices are rising fast. At $574.8 a metric tonne in February 2021, the price of soyabean was 53 per cent higher than the corresponding month of 2020, when the effects…
The world has been preoccupied with the Covid-19 pandemic, and this has also affected policymakers everywhere. There is much more recognition today of the terrible effects of underfunding public health over decades and how this affects the resilience of economies…
The US is nowhere near as economically dominant as it was even a decade ago. Yet President-elect Joe Biden can take several relatively simple steps that would have far-reaching benefits for the US economy, the American people, and the rest…
