Development Setbacks Mount as Frequency of Conflict Surges to 25-Year High WASHINGTON, June 27, 2025—Conflict and instability are taking a devastating toll on the 39 economies afflicted by them, driving up extreme poverty faster than anywhere else, intensifying acute hunger, and pushing several key development goals farther out of reach, according to the World Bank’s first comprehensive assessment of their plight in the aftermath of COVID-19. As conflicts have become more frequent and deadly in the 2020s, these economies are falling...

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Prepared by Cajsa Klass and Ana-Simona Manu Financial conditions matter for economic activity and inflation. Financial conditions indices (FCIs) provide a consolidated measure of how easily and cheaply households, firms and governments can access financing, which in turn influences spending and investment decisions across the economy. Various FCIs have been proposed by practitioners and scholars. These differ in specification and scope, but typically include key financial variables such as interest rates, equity prices, corporate bond spreads and exchange rates. Central banks, for...

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WASHINGTON, June 10, 2025—Carbon pricing revenues exceeded $100 billion in 2024, according to a new World Bank report released today. Over half of this revenue generated for public budgets was earmarked for environment, infrastructure, and development projects, representing a slight increase from previous years. The report—State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2025—notes that there are now 80 carbon pricing instruments in operation worldwide, a net increase of five over the past year. The report shows that all large middle-income economies have now...

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Keynote speech by Philip R. Lane, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the Government Borrowers Forum 2025 Dublin, 11 June 2025 I am grateful for the invitation to contribute to the Government Borrowers Forum. I will use my time to cover three topics. First, I will briefly discuss last week’s monetary policy decision. Second, I will describe some current features of the euro area bond market. Third, I will outline some innovations that might expand the scope for euro-denominated bonds to...

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Blog post by Benjamin Böninghausen and Florian Hartmann | Geopolitical tensions and trade policy uncertainty are injecting unpredictability into global financial markets. What seems like rock-solid market sentiment today can turn into jitters tomorrow. In this ECB Blog, we present a new risk appetite indicator to systematically track such shifts in market sentiment. Market swings – important beyond the trading floor Central banks need to keep an eye on market sentiment as it signals what investors think about the future. Investors’...

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Blog post by Olivier Coibion, Dimitris Georgarakos, Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Geoff Kenny and Justus Meyer | Military and diplomatic conflicts harm economic growth. This ECB blog shows that the expected length of wars matters for how strongly they weigh on consumer sentiment. Geopolitical tensions not only distress financial markets, but they can also make consumers worry about their personal financial future and the economy at large. Data from the ECB’s Consumer Expectations Survey (CES) suggests both notable concerns about geopolitical tensions and signs of deteriorating...

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Sustainability is at the core of Mannheimer Swartling’s operations. Through our advisory services, community involvement and internal initiatives, we strive to contribute to positive, long-term development. In our 2024 Sustainability Report, we share how we are addressing today’s challenges and opportunities to create value for our clients, society and our own organisation. 2024 was marked by ongoing global challenges, with geopolitical conflicts and economic uncertainty reminding us of the importance of cooperation and long-term sustainability. Our greatest opportunity to make...

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ECB designing high privacy standards to make online and offline digital payments as close as possible to cash transactions ECB started work on designing methodology for calibrating digital euro holding limits ECB continues to provide technical input to legislative discussions with European co-legislators The European Central Bank (ECB) today published its first progress report on the digital euro preparation phase, which was launched on 1 November 2023 with the aim of laying the foundations for the potential issuance of a digital euro. The...

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