Just two years ago, Ghana was experiencing unstable commodity prices and a deteriorating macroeconomic situation. Yet, through a unique combination of World Bank guarantees nearly $8 billion in…
Will cash and checks still exist 15 or 20 years from now given the increasing digitization of money? Is the smartphone our new bank? Will many people working in the financial sector industry lose…
I recently had the chance to get to know dozens of forward-thinking, dynamic individuals from the public and private sectors. Despite their varied backgrounds, resumes, and perspectives, they…
Also available in: Arabic | French National Bank of Abu Dhabi, UAE. Photo: Wikimedia Commons Gulf banking markets may have entered an important phase of consolidation, with the potential to…
For the first time in history, the number of people living in extreme poverty has fallen below 10%. The world has never been as ambitious about development as it is today. After adopting the…
Photo: Joyfull/Shutterstock Singapore is an example of one of the most competitive cities in Asia and in the world. Many, many other cities want to be the next Singapore. In fact, Singapore has…
Understanding macroeconomic volatility part 3Read parts 1 & 2
There’s good evidence that a country’s level of financial development affects the impact of volatility on economic growth,…
Understanding Macroeconomic Volatility: Part 2 The fact is that a government can soften a recession by increasing spending (the counter-cyclical approach) to raise demand and output. If government…
Volatility in financial markets gets wide attention in the public eye. Less noticed is what we in the development world call macroeconomic volatility—faster-than-desired swings in the broad forces…
Globally, around 2 billion people do not use formal financial services. In Southeast Asia, there are 264 million adults who are still “unbanked”; many of them save their money under the mattress…