Democracy promotes economic development (Naidu et al. 2014, Acemoglu et al. 2019). However, a rising internal threat is spreading across democracies worldwide: populism (Tabellini 2019, Guriev and Papaioannou 2022). One way to conceptualise populism is as a ‘thin-centered’ ideology that views society as fundamentally divided into two homogeneous, opposing groups: ‘the people’ against ‘the elite’. […]
The economics of space is no longer the province of science fiction. However, the economics profession has paid little attention to space exploration as a dynamic market. This column argues that economists should turn their attention to the stars, harnessing opportunities that beckon beyond Earth’s limits. A variety of concepts from standard economics can be […]
Some of Donald Trump’s policy proposals could have profound macroeconomic implications, but there is large uncertainty around the (net) economic effects a second Trump term would have. For instance, would the US dollar appreciate due to new tariffs, or would it fall in the face of Trump’s repeated vocal opposition to a strong dollar? And […]
20 feet of water flooded our village” – “Prices of everyday goods are soaring…we cannot buy enough food.” – “Children are not able to go back to school.” – “Our water is contaminated…we are suffering from diarrhea and skin diseases.” These troubling accounts, while tragic, have become all too familiar. In just three years, Pakistan […]
