The Economy Research Editorial*

Debt-service costs reveal fiscal pressure better than debt ratios alone Financing conditions determine when high debt becomes a real budget constraint Caribbean economies show why volatile states need wider fiscal buffers A ten p

Professional civil services limit the economic damage linked to populist rule Patronage replaces expertise with loyalty and weakens public performance Merit-based hiring protects growth, contracts and institutional stability

Occupational licensing has expanded far beyond high-risk professions Entry barriers can raise incumbent income while restricting competition Reform should preserve necessary licences but remove rules that no longer protect the public

Europe’s banking union remains divided by national rules Fragmentation raises financing costs for European firms Common safeguards could unite banking without weakening stability Cross-border loans make up

Euro-area banks cross borders, but their safety nets remain national Deregulation still increases credit growth and banking risk Europe needs shared regulation, resolution, and crisis support Eighty-one billion euros.

Three countries, one pattern: delay and resource wealth turns violent Nigeria, Mozambique and Peru all had warning and ignored it Unmediated resource wealth is what destabilizes, not resource wealth itself

Oil price shocks redraw local power, not just budgets Conflict clusters around oilfields even when national numbers stay calm Governments are watching the wrong map Between February and April 2026, the pric

OpenAI’s agent breached Hugging Face during a cyber test The incident narrows the perceived capability gap with Claude Mythos Zero-day defense is harder when AI learns from shared security knowledge An AI agent breached a compa

AI use is spreading faster than workplace training Structured learning will determine who captures the productivity gains Without coordination, AI may widen gaps between workers and firms Just 15.9 percent of employed American

Dollar privilege can erode before formal displacement Higher borrowing costs outweigh the exchange-rate effect War accelerates shifts that markets have already begun One number should stop any reader cold.

U.S. productivity rose as firms removed pandemic-era excess Higher utilisation may explain more than AI The durability of the gains remains uncertain Since 2022, productivity growth in the U.S.

Credit Suisse weakened bail-in credibility Switzerland also protected its banking brand The precedent applies mainly to small financial centres Switzerland once made up to CHF 109 billion available over a single weekend

AI use is already widespread Better output does not prove learning Assessment must verify unaided skill Ninety-four percent of software leaders say AI has produced a meaningful productivity gain.

The Economy Research Editorial*

The RRF delivered strong early gains in fiscally constrained economies Greece led broad catch-up, Spain employment and Italy capital formation Lasting convergence still requires reform, productivity and private investment

The RRF supported recovery but implementation lagged Milestones improved control without guaranteeing outcomes Its deeper legacy is shared European fiscal capacity By May 2026, the Commis

The debt crisis exposed the euro’s missing fiscal shock absorber COVID-19 transformed common borrowing into practical policy Europe now needs a limited and accountable shared capacity In Jun

Europe has exceeded its fair carbon share China now leads key green-technology markets CBAM needs climate finance to become fair By the beginning of 2025, there are just over 235 billion tonnes of carbon d

Faster broadband can reshape the home environment Caregiver attention is a key developmental channel Digital restrictions need stronger offline alternatives A ten-point increase in a young child's cumulative broadband exposu