Ann Low, US Department of State: Good Corporate Governance is Good Business

OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises. Over the past decade, cross-border trade and investment by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) has surged. According to the OECD, whereas in 2005, there were only three SOEs in the Fortune Global 50 list

Read More

Building Stronger Governance and Compliance Foundations in Sub-Saharan Africa

Analysts, politicians, economists and media pundits have kicked off 2016 with a largely pessimistic outlook for the global economy. Clearly none of us can predict where the economy will be in twelve months but we do know that we are

Read More

Michael Pettis: Money Is Not Created Out of Thin Air

A recurring conversation I have with clients concerns the ability of banks to create credit, and of governments to monetise debt, and whether this ability is the solution to or the cause of financial instability and economic crisis. Monetarists and structuralists

Read More

Otaviano Canuto, IMF: Whither Emerging Markets Foreign Exchange Reserves

After a exponential rise in foreign exchange reserves accumulation by emerging markets from 2000 onwards, the tide seems to have turned south since mid-2014. Changes in capital flows and commodity prices have been major factors behind the inflection, with the

Read More

From the editor: The Art of the Doomsayer – Crisis? What Crisis?

Just as a broken watch still tells the right time twice a day, the persistent doomsayer will eventually be vindicated. In the financial world, entire reputations are built on predicting recessions, if not depressions: keep it up long enough and

Read More

IFC: Capital Markets Key to Development

Ending extreme poverty for good and building shared prosperity across the developing world takes money – a lot of money. Take infrastructure: for the foreseeable future, an estimated $50 billion per year is needed in Africa alone to deliver basic

Read More

Ross Jackson: Eurozone – The End Game

It has become clear to most EU citizens, but not yet to the EU leaders, that neoliberal economics has been a total fiasco for the environment, increased inequality, and decreased the overall sense of well-being for over thirty years. When

Read More

Brazil & Argentina: Only One Getting Real

Brazil is just one step removed from facing its reality. With nearly all macroeconomic indicators pointing in the less desirable of directions, the country is facing a downgrade of its sovereign credit rating with S&P on July 28 changing its

Read More

Otaviano Canuto, IMF: How Commodity-Dependent Are Latin American Economies?

The end of the upswing phase of the commodity price super-cycle, after its peak in 2011, has lowered economic growth prospects in most of Latin America. While that broad statement can hardly be disputed, Chapter 3 of the latest IMF

Read More

TD: Making the Environment Part of the Bank’s DNA

When Mike Pedersen joined TD Bank Group in 2007 as Group Head, Corporate Operations, he was tasked with putting an environmental strategy in place for the bank. Early on, he saw the need for full-time executive leadership to drive the

Read More