This week’s featured stories 5 October – 11 October 2026…
Financial resilience in an age of repeated shocks
The financial system has weathered repeated shocks, but weak growth, supply disruptions, rising debt, leverage and AI exposures remain risks. Andrew Bailey argues that policymakers should support sustainable growth, keep monetary and fiscal frameworks credible, and strengthen core markets
The think tank in the age of AI
Marcus Sia argues that as AI and social media make information more abundant than ever, think tanks must go beyond producing research to offer trusted judgement and remain relevant to both policymakers and the public
Business calls for action to harness AI
Business at OECD had a strong presence at the OECD Latin America and the Caribbean Ministerial Summit in Montevideo, where it explored how the region can speed up AI adoption by businesses, improve conditions for investment and innovation, help SMEs use new technologies, and equip workers with the skills needed for an AI-driven economy
In the digital age, payments and finance need a trusted monetary anchor. Piero Cipollone explains how the digital euro, tokenisation and central banks can modernise public money and strengthen Europe’s financial system
Cybersecurity in a dynamic digital world
PwC’s 2027 Global Digital Trust Insights survey reveals how leaders are managing cybersecurity as rapid advances in AI, geopolitical volatility, and interconnected systems reshape cyber risk. Against this backdrop, the report shows where leaders are investing to strengthen resilience and where critical gaps remain
Rising debt costs are stalling development
In 2025, developing countries paid nearly $1 trillion in net public debt interest—almost triple the 2010 level. Closing the borrowing-cost gap with developed economies could save $500 billion a year. A new UNCTAD report urges advancing the Borrowers’ Platform to tackle structurally higher costs
The Europe-Central Asia corridor is changing, and so are the risks it faces
Christopher Wizda writes that the Netherlands is now Europe’s largest buyer of Kazakh goods, and almost all of it relies on one commodity, moving one way. For banks and exporters, the interesting questions sit in the other direction: carbon, corridors, and compliance
Africa is winning strategic investment again. Turning it into industry is the harder part
The continent drew about $70 billion in international investment in 2025, its third-highest year since 1990, as investors circle energy, minerals and infrastructure. Investors keep positioning themselves in sectors that are becoming more important to the global economy, according to the World Investment Report 2026 by UNCTAD
Hedge funds improve market functioning, but can also amplify stress
In a new IMF Blog, Andrea Deghi, Taneli Mäkinen, Mahvash S Qureshi and Felix Suntheim argue that countries should better monitor hedge fund leverage and interconnectedness, and policy measures should be calibrated to the source of risk
Targeted support, not subsidies, can best protect people when inflation surges
Targeted support for vulnerable families costs a fraction of broad subsidies while helping preserve scarce fiscal resources, Braulio Britos, Chiara Maggi, Galip Kemal Ozhan, and Sihwan Yang write in a new IMF Blog
Policies to curb tax avoidance are changing how countries court global business
Globalisation and digital technologies have made highly mobile intangible assets central to production, firm value, and structure. Paula Beltran Saavedra, Daisuke Fujii, Gene Kindberg-Hanlon, and Colombe Ladreit note that profits and investment are aligning more closely as international taxation evolves
The Danes, the Dutch, the Swedes and the feasibility of walking away from pay-as-you-go pensions
In a Bruegel Working Paper, Zsolt Darvas, Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, Alexandre Mendonça and Bo Sangers examine whether the pension systems of Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden outperform predominantly pay-as-you-go systems, and whether their development provides a replicable reform path for other European Union countries
In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie discusses the economic sway of Brazil, Russia, India and China with Jim O’Neill, who coined the BRIC acronym in 2001, and Bruegel researchers Suman Bery and Alicia García-Herrero
Competitiveness and opportunities for European clean tech
The EU is gradually becoming less competitive in green value chains. In a Bruegel Working Paper, Ketan Ahuja, Karan Daryanani, Marie Jugé, Ben McWilliams and Simone Tagliapietra stress the importance of industrial policy and argue that policymakers should direct investment in specific industries to regions whose existing ecosystems offer the best fit
