IMF | Gulf Cooperation Council: Economic Prospects and Policy Challenges for the GCC Countries

Executive Summary The already sluggish global recovery has suffered new setbacks and uncertainty weighs heavily on prospects. The euro area crisis intensified in the first half of 2012 and growth has slowed across the globe, reflecting financial market tensions, extensive

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Pier Carlo Padoan, OECD: A New Era for the Euro Area

The euro area is entering a new era. The importance of [approval by the German constitutional court of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM)] and the European Central Bank’s (ECB) new Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) programme set out recently cannot be

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European Environment Agency: Greening Our Economy

By Professor Jacqueline McGlade At first sight, the fate of threatened species might seem a world apart from the economy. Upon closer examination, however, we start to understand the connections between the two. The ‘good health’ of natural systems is a

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Frugality, Education, Infrastructure and Attitude Change is Needed in the West: We Should Not Rely on Keynesian Nostrums to Pull Us Through

By Jon Moynihan The West’s economic dilemma will not be solved until those countries have not just restructured their balance sheets, by significantly lowering expenditure, but have also significantly changed the mix of that expenditure. In the UK and the

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DESERTEC: Clean Power From Deserts

By Michael Düren Solar power from deserts can contribute significantly to a future renewable energy system. The technically accessible solar potential in deserts exceeds the global energy demand by a factor of 20. In the DESERTEC concept, a smart super

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World Bank Group’s PREM: Harnessing Trade Opportunities for Growth and Development

The pace of global trade integration over the past two decades has been extraordinary. Trade has been a key driver of global growth, convergence, and poverty reduction. During 1983–2010, global trade grew twice as fast as gross domestic product (GDP).

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“The Entrepreneur” – A Sense of Balance

By Mona Vyas From the moment of conception to the surrender of the last breath, entrepreneurs have to fight innumerable battles: political, cultural, economical, sociological, psychological, metaphysical, geopolitical, hereditary and biological. The world today reflects a complex, unpredictable and incalculable

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European Investment Fund (EIF): EUR 180m of Loans for Microbusinesses Across Europe Under Progress Microfinance

After completing his 26-month military service, Andronikos (23) set up his own car wash business on his parent’s land. The land in Episkopi had been unused for a few years and even though he had thought of opening a carwash

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Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) and INET Council on the Euro Zone Crisis (ICEC): Europe is Sleepwalking Towards Disaster of Incalculable Proportions

The alternative to fixing the euro is a catastrophic crisis with the euro zone socially unsustainable. The dilemma is how to unwind the high debt levels and losses in competitiveness accumulated and do this in the middle of recessions that

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Brazil Cuts Interest Rates to Record Low to Stimulate GDP Growth

As less consumer spending and lower business confidence cause the Brazilian economy to slow, President Rousseff looks to boost growth by cutting and simplifying taxes while the Central Bank cut interest rates. President Rousseff just met with Prime Minister Cameron

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