For a century, economics has taken for granted an international order that is now fraying.

The European Union wants to finance Ukraine’s war efforts using a loan based on Russia’s frozen assets in Belgium. If that falls through, there’s no easy alternative.

The European Commission wants to use frozen Russian assets to lend €140 billion to Kyiv. A majority of Norway’s political parties back the idea that the country and its vast sovereign wealth fund could act as guarantor.

As the European Union tries to put together a large loan for Ukraine, sovereign guarantees and the risk they pose to member states’ credit ratings have become a stumbling block. Fortunately, having raked in tens of billions of dollars from the fallout of Russia’s invasion, Norway could break the impasse.

Biofuels and trade policies can be used to dampen the impact of global food price swings on domestic markets, especially in developing countries. Reducing biofuel feedstock commodities by 20% dampens the price increase from an extreme weather event by 53-67% while a 50% cut fully offsets maize and wheat price increases. Multilateral co-ordination could help Read more about Biofuels and trade policies to mitigate food price shocks. OECD Working Paper[…]

The country provides less support, as a share of GDP, than its neighbours.

After the Ukraine war caused natural gas prices to rise sharply, Norway collected windfall profits totaling an estimated $113 billion. Refusing to use these gains to support Ukraine’s defense and reconstruction is not only morally wrong; it also reflects a myopic perspective that Norway’s government should abandon.

The Norwegian finance ministry recently revealed just how much the country has benefited from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, estimating its windfall natural-gas revenues for 2022-23 to be around $111 billion. Yet rather than transferring these gains to those on the front line, the government is hoarding them.

Former World Bank Chief Economists Justin Yifu Lin, Alan Gelb and I argue that the June 2023 Paris Development Finance Summit missed a crucial element: To mobilise private capital at a scale significant to climate change, multilateral development banks need to find ways to work much more closely with pension funds and other institutional investors Read more about What the Paris Development Finance Summit Missed. Project Syndicate[…]

Jessica Lovering and I argue that to accelerate the energy transition and counter Russia’s influence in emerging countries, development banks must start financing nuclear energy.