Most free trade advocates falsely claim comparative advantage ensures developmental gains for all from trade liberalisation. But even mainstream theory doesn’t promise partial liberalisation is better.

Agribusinesses increasingly shape food policies worldwide. Claiming to best address recent food security concerns, they profit more from innovations in food production, processing, and distribution.

While media coverage of Iran’s restrictions on passage through the Hormuz Straits focuses on fuel prices, closure is also disrupting crucial fertiliser supplies, risking catastrophe for billions.

Many economists claim trade liberalisation accelerates development. But only a few economies have gained many jobs. Most have experienced greater vulnerability, industrialization and food insecurity.

U.S. President Trump’s economic strategy for his second term aims to get the rest of the world, especially its wealthy allies with greater means, to pay more to strengthen the world’s richest economy.

Opposition to data centres has been rapidly spreading internationally due to their fast-growing resource demands. DCs have been proliferating, driven by the popularity of artificial intelligence.

The World Bank’s 1981 Berg Report provided the blueprint for structural adjustment, including economic liberalisation in Africa. Urging trade liberalisation, it promised growth from agriculture.

President Trump’s snide barbs against his appointee, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, have revived support for central bank independence–long used by powerful financial interests against growth and equity.

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have risen over the last two centuries, with current and accumulated emissions per capita from rich nations greatly exceeding those of the Global South.

The accumulation of still growing greenhouse gas emissions in an increasingly unequal world is accelerating planetary heating. This is worsening inequalities, both nationally and internationally.

New institutional economics has received another so-called Nobel prize, ostensibly for again claiming that good institutions and democratic governance ensure growth, development, equity & democracy.

Many low-income countries (LICs) continue to slip further behind the rest of the world. Meanwhile, people in extreme poverty have been increasing again after decades of decline.

Developing country governments are being blamed for irresponsibly borrowing too much. The resulting debt stress has blocked investments and growth in this unequal and unfair world economic order.

Addressing climate change requires a comprehensive, equitable, and pragmatic approach that prioritizes substantial emissions reductions and supports vulnerable populations most affected by global heating.

The World Bank insists private finance is needed for economic recovery and the Sustainable Development Goals but does little to ensure profit-hungry commercial finance serves the public interest.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s Indo-Pacific Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) is the economic arm of his administration’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, aimed at countering China’s influence in the region.

Ajay Banga was anointed World Bank president for promoting financial inclusion. Thanks to its success and interest rate hikes, more poor people are drowning in debt as consumer prices rise.

The World Bank plans to use public funds to subsidize private finance, ostensibly to mobilize much more capital to address the climate crisis. But the new plan is not the solution it purports to be.

To achieve universal health coverage, all people need access to public healthcare. This should be an entitlement for all, regardless of means, requiring adequate long term sustainable financing.

The ongoing plunder of Africa’s natural resources drained by capital flight is holding it back yet again. More African nations face protracted recessions amid mounting debt distress, rubbing salt into deep wounds from the past.