Category: Economies
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The Developing-Country Convergence Crisis
For much of the modern development story, there was one powerful assumption: poorer countries would eventually become richer. They would industrialise, export, attract investment, acquire technology, improve productivity and gradually close the income gap with advanced economies. Globalisation was expected to make this process faster. That assumption is becoming much…
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The AI Investment Boom May Create the Next Great Global Divide
Artificial intelligence is usually discussed as a technology revolution. It may be more useful to see it as the beginning of a new economic geography. The factories of the industrial age were built around coal, steel, ports and railways. The digital economy grew around software, telecommunications and the internet. The…
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The AI Dependency Hidden Inside Free Access
A small manufacturer may soon receive an AI tool at almost no licence cost and still find that using it creates an expensive dependence. The software may be open, while the computing power, maintenance, upgrades and practical knowledge remain elsewhere. For India, this is the uncomfortable question behind the next…
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The Conditional Market: When Being Competitive Is No Longer Enough
A factory can make a good product, offer a fair price and find an interested buyer—and still struggle to secure the order. Its shipment may fall outside a favourable tariff quota. Its inputs may fail an origin requirement. Its production may depend on restricted technology. Its delivery system may be…
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When Computing Power Becomes Economic Power
For two centuries, the global economy has repeatedly been divided by access to the technologies that raise productivity. The Industrial Revolution separated countries that could mechanise production from those that remained dependent on manual labour. Electricity created another divide. Mass manufacturing created another. Computers and the internet widened some gaps…
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When Geography Returns to Globalisation
When Geography Returns to Globalisation For almost three decades, globalisation created the impression that geography was becoming less important. Goods could be designed in America, manufactured in Asia, assembled somewhere else and sold across the world. Containerisation, large ports, cheap shipping and digital supply-chain systems made distance appear manageable. The…
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A World Full of Workers but Short of Labour
The global economy is entering a strange period. Millions of young people are searching for stable work in South Asia and Africa, while employers in Europe, Japan, South Korea and other ageing economies are struggling to find workers. One part of the world has people without sufficient jobs. Another has…
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The African Demographic Opportunity
The Continent Growing Younger in an Ageing World The twenty-first century may be remembered as the period when the centre of the world population slowly shifted towards Africa. Europe is ageing. China’s workforce has begun to contract. Japan is already struggling with labour shortages. Several countries in East Asia are…
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The Fertilizer Vulnerability: When a Gas Shock Becomes a Food Crisis
The Hidden Energy System Beneath Every Farm Agriculture still looks natural from a distance. There is soil, rain, sunlight, seed and human labour. But modern farming is also an industrial system built on natural gas, mined minerals, global shipping, credit and government subsidy. A farmer may sow wheat in India,…
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