By Ericka Osses Climate change poses significant risks to the global economy by affecting labor productivity, influencing investment decisions and adding uncertainty to long-term planning. During my time as a 2025 Summer in the Field Fellow, I quantified the macroeconomic consequences of climate change across countries by working in the computer lab at Boston University. […]
By Mengdi Yue As climate, biodiversity and pollution crises intensify, the call for green transformation has become universal. Yet while the urgency is clear, how countries cooperate to achieve it is still evolving. Understanding the how is becoming essential as countries search for practical decarbonization pathways. A new special policy study published by the China […]
The access to medicines discourse over the past 30 years has highlighted the myriad of obstacles to access experienced by low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Already plagued by over-taxed health services systems, a limited health care workforce and other resource constraints, in the mid-1990s these countries faced a new constraint in the form of the […]
A new update to the Chinese Loans to Africa (CLA) Database, managed by the Boston University Global Development Policy Center, estimates that from 2000-2024, Chinese lenders signed 1,319 loan commitments amounting to $180.87 billion with 49 African governments and seven regional institutions. In 2024, Chinese loans commitments to Africa remained concentrated among a small group […]
By Rishikesh Ram Bhandary and Marina Zucker-Marques Last week, the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) Presidency published the Baku to Belém Roadmap to $1.3T, which brings together a range of actions and reform measures that could help mobilize $1.3 trillion in climate finance by 2035. Last year at COP29, governments agreed on a […]
By Rebecca Ray Globally, conserving nature is a key priority for protecting communities and economies from the catastrophic impacts of climate change. To this end, nations around the world have signed the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and committed to mobilizing $200 billion per year for global biodiversity conservation, including $30 billion through international finance. However, […]
The protection of the Amazon is a central theme of the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) in Belém, Brazil. However, efforts to ensure that the Amazon is defended are at risk of instead being defunded—by investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). Written into international investment treaties, ISDS gives foreign investors a special right to sue governments […]
Por Pedro Perfeito da Silva e Marina Zucker-Marques A expansão das FinTechs—inovações tecnológicas em serviços financeiros—está mudando a forma como pessoas e empresas poupam, investem, realizam pagamentos, acessam crédito, e gerenciam suas finanças. Enquanto estudos destacam o potencial das FinTechs para promover inclusão financeira e eficiência, elas também criam novos riscos para países em desenvolvimento, […]
By Pedro Perfeito da Silva and Marina Zucker-Marques The spread of FinTech—technology-driven innovation in financial services—is changing how people and businesses save, invest, make payments, access credit and manage their finances. While studies highlight FinTech’s potential to promote financial inclusion and efficiency, it also creates new risks for developing countries, from financial instability to currency […]
Since the crisis of the Bretton Woods order, capitalist economies have experienced a pervasive impulse to financialization, characterized by the growing importance of financial practices and motives alongside the dissemination of market reforms such as the removal of capital controls and the erosion of financial regulation. Beside the negative implications for growth and income distribution, […]