Sustainable Growth Newswire
EPF compiles a selection of policy oriented-research from around the globe pertaining to its policy initiatives. To receive a weekly email of the newswire, please subscribe to our newsletter
Our Shared Digital Future: Responsible Digital Transformation – Board Briefing
By 2022, 60% of global GDP will be digitized. Yet today, only 45% of people trust that technology will improve their lives. Every sector is beginning to face deep questions about what the implications of this transformation will be. WEF| Our Shared Digital Future: Responsible Digital Transformation - Board Briefing
Automation and Artificial Intelligence: How machines are affecting people and places
At first, technologists issued dystopian alarms about the power of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) to destroy jobs. Then came a correction, with a wave of reassurances. Now, the discourse appears to be arriving at a more complicated understanding, suggesting that automation will bring neither apocalypse nor utopia, but instead both benefits and stress alike. Such is the ambiguous and sometimes disembodied nature of the “future of work” discussion. Hence the analysis presented here. Intended to bring often-inscrutable trends down…
Warnings from the Global Trade Cycle
The global trade cycle is facing major stress in 2019, downward revisions have just begun, and the risk of a major slowdown in world GDP growth cannot be minimized. In a still tightly connected world, no major economy will be an oasis. Project Syndicate| Warnings from the Global Trade Cycle
Transformational change in the Climate Investment Funds: a synthesis of the evidence
This report is a synthesis of evidence gathered on transformational change within the Climate Investment Funds (CIF). It complements a parallel evaluation on transformational change in the countries where CIF operates. It is distinguished from the evaluation by a focus on the secondary literature, produced both within and outside CIF. The objective of the evidence synthesis is to enhance understanding of how transformational change happens across the CIF portfolio, in a range of country, sector and technology contexts. CIF was…
The Rail Freight Challenge for Emerging Economies : How to Regain Modal Share
Moving more freight by rail and waterways would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, truck-induced congestion, and noise pollution and contribute to the integrated logistics that are now a hallmark of global supply chains. The timing for the shift is right, because many emerging economies are making significant investments in railways and shippers are responding to public sentiment to reduce the negative impacts of road-related logistics. In the past, most railway organizations adopted a “build and they shall come” approach, modeled on…
Fiscal Policies for Development and Climate Action
Fiscal policies can lay the foundation for low-carbon and climate-resilient development. Building on more than two decades of research in development and environmental economics, this book argues that fiscal instruments are crucial for mitigating and adapting to climate change while raising human welfare. By implementing environmental tax reforms, developing countries can reap a “triple dividend”: cutting pollution, raising economic activity, and generating development cobenefits, such as cleaner water, safer roads, and improvements in human health. These reforms need not harm…
Executive Summary of the Disaster and Climate Risk Assessment Methodology for IDB Projects: A Technical Reference for IDB Project Teams
The effects of climate change and disasters triggered by natural hazards pose a significant threat to sustainable development in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region. According to the Bank’s Technical Note What is Sustainable Infrastructure, “the region is one of the most vulnerable to the impacts of a changing climate. In 2017 it experienced severe losses from natural events, including floods in Peru that cost US$3.1 billion and floods in Colombia that resulted in 329 fatalities (MunichRE NatCatService, 2017).…
The Three Revolutions Economics Needs
The silence of most economists on the underlying causes of the political ructions erupting throughout the West – and on what, if anything, can be done to restore economic vigor – has been deafening. And it provides further evidence of the profession's refusal to acknowledge the need for change. Project Syndicate| The Three Revolutions Economics Needs