On Global Markets

For more than a decade, the European Union’s policymakers have been aiming to create a deeper pan-European capital market. In recent years, those efforts have acquired more urgency. As the think tank Bruegel recently set out: Initially, the focus was on integrating and developing national capital markets to complement bank lending and enhance risk diversification, […] 

Two weeks ago, on the evening of May 16th, Moody’s (one of the three credit rating agencies) downgraded the sovereign debt of the United States. The credit rating was trimmed back from the top Aaa to Aa1, one notch below. Moody’s reasoning, which they set out at length, was relatively straightforward: for more than a […] 

The Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), a grouping of central banks and financial regulators, was formed in 2017 and now boasts more than 60 members ranging from large global players such as the European Central Bank, the People’s Bank of China, and the Bank of Japan to relative […] 

Despite some recent falls, European electricity remains expensive, both compared to recent history and to the process available in other large economies. According to the International Energy Agency, electricity prices fell relatively quickly in most major markets in 2024, and yet, outside of the United States, remain elevated: Wholesale electricity prices declined further in many […] 

Digital markets present policymakers with a quandary. This arises partially from the fact that, in the grand scheme of things, they remain a relatively recent phenomenon, and so, unlike many other markets, decades of data and evidence on how they typically develop and operate are still lacking.  The contours of the debate were neatly set […] 

American science may be under threat. Last week, the Financial Times looked at the potential impacts of the Trump administration’s cuts to science funding. As the FT reported: Last month, almost 2,000 researchers including dozens of Nobel Prize winners issued an open letter raising the alarm. “We see real danger in this moment,” said the […] 

The market for US Treasurys has a strong claim to being the most important of all financial markets. To a greater or lesser extent, most other markets are – to some degree at least – priced in relation to it. It provides the benchmark, or risk-free rate, against which riskier assets are priced. And in […] 

In 1970, more than half a century ago, the United Nations General Assembly passed resolution 2626 committing economically advanced countries to spending 0.7% of their gross national income (GDI) to official development assistance (ODA) by 1975.  Few countries ever actually met that target. And this year both the United States and the United Kingdom have […] 

The dollar is not just America’s currency but also the wider world’s reserve currency. Indeed, it is not too much of an exaggeration to say that, in most cases, the term ‘global financial system’ could just as easily be substituted for ‘global dollar system’. Whilst the extent of dollar dominance in international reserves, trade, and […] 

Over the last few months, On Global Markets has repeatedly warned about the real economic costs of elevated levels of economic policy uncertainty. But, it seems that greater certainty on the shape of Donald Trump’s trade policy has brought its own challenges. The President’s so-called ‘Liberation Day’ reciprocal tariffs went a lot further than just […]