Tech giants will gain more and more power. Their social and political impact will be difficult to predict and control.
In 2022, the global supply chain crunch will worsen. Why and what comes next?
The difficulties plaguing global supply chains have captured the world’s attention in recent weeks. These supply chain issues will likely persist for the next six months to a year, possibly even longer.
Europe’s economic activity has bounced back to pre-pandemic levels. However, the recovery also entails new challenges.
The EU economy rebounded vigorously in spring 2021 and continued riding the re-opening wave over the summer. Not only is the EU as a whole back to the pre-pandemic level of economic activity and employment in third quarter of 2021, but by 2023 it is also projected to return to the steady output path that the economy was set to follow before the pandemic, moving onto an expansionary path.
Looking at the Middle East and North Africa, we see a region in transition. Here, new challenges overlap with longstanding dynamics, from wider access to vaccines to economic recovery through diplomatic rapprochement and de-escalations of tensions and conflict resolution. Where is the MENA region heading in 2022? What are the area’s main geopolitical and geoeconomics trends for the year ahead?
While oil prices have rebounded before soaring since the depths of collapse in the spring of 2020 — with Brent crude prices skyrocketing from $19 per barrel in April 2020 to a three-year high of $86 per barrel in October 2021 — the prospects for a sustained high oil price for Gulf producers is unlikely.
Since the emergence of COVID-19, the Middle East and North Africa region has been hit hard by several waves — and mutations — of the virus. Based on the number of cases per 100,000 population, countries like Bahrain, Israel, and Kuwait had the highest incidents, while Tunisia, Lebanon, and Iran recorded the highest death rate.
While Donald Trump and Xi Jinping trade charges and counter-charges, announcing and then canceling tariffs in the seemingly never-ending trade dispute between the United States and China, it is a mistake to view the trade dispute as simply a spat between the two, and that it will end with Joseph Biden’s presidency. It is not a Trump-Xi fight, or even mainly a U.S.-China one.
2021 approaches; Europe is filled with hope. Vaccines and medicines will help us fight our way out of the pandemic. Unprecedented rescue and recovery packages serve to soften the painful impacts of the Covid-19 crisis and the related lockdowns. After a very tough 2020 with all of its losses and set-backs, relief is in sight.
We are experiencing unprecedented times. Less than one year ago the pandemic triggered the worst economic and financial crisis ever. At the end of 2020, the world is in an extremely indebted position. My understanding of debt issues is based on my personal experience.
Inequality fosters instability. This is especially true when it overlaps with a growing sense of injustice, expanding corruption, and declining distrust in political leaders, parties, and institutions.
The Covid-19 pandemic and the measures associated with its containment have negatively impacted economic growth, capital inflows, and productivity across the world. The ripple effects have hit hardest the most vulnerable in our societies.
The Covid crisis did not affect every country in the same manner. We have long known that symmetric shocks almost always have asymmetric consequences. While there are marked differences even within homogeneous areas (such as the Eurozone), the differences between macro-regions are particularly striking. In October of this year, the IMF’s World Economic Outlook projected a 5.8% decline in GDP for advanced countries in 2020 (with an 8.3% decline for the Eurozone and a 4.3% decline for the United States).
We enter 2021 with stark reminders of how a pandemic can wreck a global economy and destabilize nations. After almost twenty years of steady poverty reduction through the Global Goals, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) sent more than 100 million people back to extreme poverty[1], and simultaneously collapsed oil markets, the airlines, and other industries.