Credit affects individuals’ perceptions and experiences of inequality. Having access to credit enables those in lower- and middle-income groups to consume an array of products and services that they otherwise would not be able to afford, thereby taking the edge off discontent. Citizens with...

The European power market is undergoing signifi cant changes. The EU has set an ambitious goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent by 2030. This will require significant investment in renewable energy sources such as wind and photovoltaics as well as measured policies to deal...

The Russian government implemented a wheat export tax in February 2015 to reduce food inflationary pressures resulting from the rouble’s dramatic devaluation. This article discusses the causes of the rouble’s instability and volatility, and the effects of the export controls on domestic...

Escalating healthcare expenditures and the need to ensure access to affordable medicine in both emerging and emerged economies are fuelling calls to contain the so-called evergreening practices of drug producers around the world. But such practices are the necessary outcome of a system that...

Two recent proposals for overcoming the euro area crisis make the case for monetary financing of the public sector. Watt proposes that the ECB finances public investment directly, while Pâris and Wyplosz contend that public debt may be effectively restructured by burying parts of it in the...

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership will reduce tariffs and lower regulatory hurdles that currently impair trade between the EU and the US. However, TTIP has been controversial from the outset. Non-governmental organisations are concerned about lowered health and environmental...

The integration of China's huge workforce into the global trading system has had profound effects on economies worldwide. Trade with China has been shown to lead to wage losses and declining employment in developed countries. The integration of the Chinese economy into the world trade is also...

A new theory of interest rates, the Neo-Fisherian theory, predicts a low inflation rate due to a central bank's low interest rate. After several years of near-zero interest rate policies and low and even negative infl ation rates in the eurozone and in the US, this theory gained momentum in...