Enrico Colombatto

  The direction of the world economy is unclear. Geopolitical crises may disrupt supply chains (wars in various parts of the world), financial overhangs need resolute answers (public debts and interest-rate manipulation) and self-inflicted wounds (United States President Donald Trump’s preference for confrontational approaches, with occasional second thoughts) sometimes generate unpleasant surprises. Previously, governments responded […]

  In early 2025, inflation was about 2.8 percent both in the European Union and in the United States, barely making headlines. Until mid-March, most commentators were predicting that in the following months the figure would drop further to about 2.5 percent. Everything seemed to be under control. Very few noted that the rates were […]

  In the past, globalization referred to an economic framework in which producers would make use of increasingly larger amounts of intermediate inputs – goods consumed in the production process – imported from all over the world. These new production models involved vast and widely distributed supply chains, transforming local and regional opportunities into worldwide […]

  Sovereign wealth funds have gained attention as governments increasingly rely on them to manage public assets. In the past decade, their total assets have doubled, growing from $6.7 trillion in 2014 to $12.7 trillion in 2023. If the combined sovereign wealth funds were a country, it would be the world’s third-largest economy, trailing only the […]

  Most political theories assert that protection against foreign invaders is one of the main functions of the state. However, excluding years when countries were engaged in active warfare, the proportion of global government spending on defense in relation to gross domestic product (GDP) has remained relatively modest. For instance, from the conclusion of the […]