The financial clout of the world's sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) is massive, and many of these are controlled by authoritarian regimes. It cannot be ruled out that these funds might acquire shareholdings in banks that play key roles in other countries. This paper studies the extent to which SWFs...

The Limits to Growth was published 50 years ago. Ordered by the Club of Rome, the study was a milestone in the analysis of the economic, demographic, technical and ecological effects of the existing economic system. In industrialised Western countries in particular, the critical examination of...

Ports and shipping have been in the spotlight in 2021 with surging demand, skyrocketing freight rates and week-long queues. This development stands against the background of the current global COVID-19 pandemic. Amid these disruptive waves, the North Range ports (Le Havre to Hamburg) face...

While the euro officially came into being in 1999, it was the introduction of euro notes and coins 20 years ago in January 2002 that made the common currency a tangible reality for European citizens. The circle of member states has since grown from 11 to 19, and a growing section of the...

In the November/December 2021 issue of Intereconomics, Françoise Drumetz and Christian Pfister examine Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and approach it from the policy consequences that would follow. This paper is a reply to Drumetz and Pfister. It restates the core of MMT and offers some...

Along with the Green Deal, the von der Leyen Commission immediately started to look at how to adopt an industrial strategy that would promote EU competitiveness and support the Commission's self-assigned "geopolitical" role by boosting strategic autonomy.