Global ETF News Older than One Year
Methane Emissions Must Fall for World to Hit Temperature Targets
November 2, 2022--Fees are a promising and practical solution, especially those that build off existing business taxes common for extractive industries and agriculture
Countries must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases substantially to keep global temperature targets in reach and limit risks of destabilizing the world's climate.
Most attention has focused on carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels, but it is also critical to cut methane emissions-not least because methane has a more powerful near-term warming effect than CO2 and cutting methane emissions would have a more immediate impact on the climate.
As the Chart of the Week shows, global greenhouse gases must be cut by 25 percent to 50 percent from 2019 levels by 2030 to limit global warming to 1.5-2 degrees Celsius-the central goal of the Paris Agreement. Reducing methane emissions could lower the stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and cut the very scary risks of "tipping points"-when climate change becomes self-perpetuating. This is because methane stays in the atmosphere for only 12 years on average compared with up to a thousand years for CO2.
Source: imf.org
Cold hard (digital) cash: The economics of central bank digital currency
October 1, 2022--Central banks around the world are exploring the case for central bank digital currency. This column outlines the economic forces that shape the rise of digital money and motivate the current debate, looks at the implications for monetary policy and financial stability as well as the policy issues and challenges, and highlights several areas where our understanding of digital money could be improved by further research.
Central banks around the world are exploring the case for central bank digital currency (CBDC) - essentially a digital version of cash (Nielpelt 2021). In a new paper (Ahnert et al. 2022a), we provide an overview of the economics of CBDC. First, we outline the economic forces that shape the rise of digital money and motivate the current debate. We then look at the implications for monetary policy and financial stability before discussing policy issues and challenges. Finally, we highlight several areas where our understanding of digital money could be improved by further research.
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Source: cepr.org
IMF Working Paper-Digitalization and Resilience
Early data since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic suggest an even larger effect during the resulting recessions. These results are robust across a wide range of digitalization measures-such as ICT input and employment shares, robot usage, online sales, intangible assets and digital skills listed on online profiles-and several alternative specifications.
Source: imf.org
Five of the worst ETF first-year performances are crypto-related
The funds were launched in the heady days of 2021 - just in time for them for them to face the full force of 2022's market fury, Morningstar Direct data show.
Source: ft.com
IMF Working Paper-How Persistent are Climate-Related Price Shocks? Implications for Monetary Policy
Specifically, droughts tend to have the highest overall positive impact on inflation, reflecting rising food prices. Interestingly, floods tend to have a dampening impact on inflation, pointing to the predominance of demand shocks in this case. Over the long run, the dominant monetary policy paradigm of flexible inflation targeting faced with supply-induced climate shocks may become increasingly ineffective, especially in LIDCs. More research is needed to find viable alternative monetary policy frameworks.
Source: IMF.org
IEA-World Energy Outlook 2022
Russia has been by far the world's largest exporter of fossil fuels, but its curtailments of natural gas supply to Europe and European sanctions on imports of oil and coal from Russia are severing one of the main arteries of global energy trade. All fuels are affected, but gas markets are the epicentre as Russia seeks leverage by exposing consumers to higher energy bills and supply shortages.
Prices for spot purchases of natural gas have reached levels never seen before, regularly exceeding the equivalent of USD 250 for a barrel of oil
Source: iea.org (International Energy Agency)
Climate Plans Remain Insufficient: More Ambitious Action Needed Now
According to the report, the combined climate pledges of 193 Parties under the Paris Agreement could put the world on track for around 2.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century.
Today's report also shows current commitments will increase emissions by 10.6% by 2030, compared to 2010 levels. This is an improvement over last year's assessment, which found countries were on a path to increase emissions by 13.7% by 2030, compared to 2010 levels.
Source: unfccc.int
Currency Depreciations,Risk Intensifying Food, Energy Crisis in Developing Economies
In U.S. dollar terms, the prices of most commodities have declined from their recent peaks amid concerns of an impending global recession, the report documents. From the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 through the end of last month, the price of Brent crude oil in U.S. dollars fell nearly 6 percent. Yet, because of currency depreciations, almost 60 percent of oil-importing emerging-market and developing economies saw an increase in domestic-currency oil prices during this period. Nearly 90 percent of these economies also saw a larger increase in wheat prices in local-currency terms compared to the rise in U.S. dollars.
Source: worldbank.org
The 2022 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: health at the mercy of fossil fuels
As these crises unfold, climate change escalates unabated. Its worsening impacts are increasingly affecting the foundations of human health and wellbeing, exacerbating the vulnerability of the world's populations to concurrent health threats.
Source: thelancet.com
OECD-Shedding light on the drivers of services tradability over two decades
While there is some variation across sectors, the analysis suggests that these two determinants jointly account for a quarter to half of the aggregate decline in trade costs for services during this 20-year period. Furthermore, services provisions in regional trade agreements (RTAs) can explain between 3% and 14% of the reduction in trade costs for communications services and financial and insurance services. These findings demonstrate the importance of whole-of-government strategies to promote services trade competitiveness, inter alia market access, regulatory reform, as well as investment in physical and digital infrastructure and adoption of new technologies.
Source: OECD
October 28, 2022--Summary:
This paper investigates the role of digitialization in improving economic resilience. Using balance sheet data from 24,000 firms in 75 countries, and a difference-in-differences approach, we find that firms in industries that are more digitalized experience lower revenue losses following recessions.
October 28, 2022--The cryptocurrency and blockchain funds launched in 2021 just before prices tumbled
Crypto exchange traded funds account for five of the worst seven debuts in the history of the ETF industry.
The findings, from data provided exclusively for the Financial Times, exclude the performance of leveraged and inverse funds, which are not designed to be held over the long term.
October 28, 2022--Summary:
Climate change is likely to lead to more frequent and more severe supply and demand shocks that will present a challenge to monetary policy formulation. The main objective of the paper is to investigate how climate shocks affect consumer prices in a broad range of countries over a long period using local projection methods. It finds that the impact of climate shocks on inflation depends on the type and intensity of shocks, country income level, and monetary policy regime.
October 26, 2022--Executive summary
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has sparked a global energy crisis
The world is in the midst of its first global energy crisis- a shock of unprecedented breadth and complexity. Pressures in markets predated Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but Russia's actions have turned a rapid economic recovery from the pandemic-which strained all manner of global supply chains, including energy- into full-blown energy turmoil.
October 26, 2022--A new report from UN Climate Change shows countries are bending the curve of global greenhouse gas emissions downward but underlines that these efforts remain insufficient to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
October 26, 2022-October 26, 2022--Elevated commodity prices could prolong inflationary pressures
The shrinking value of the currencies of most developing economies is driving up food and fuel prices in ways that could deepen the food and energy crises that many of them already face, according to the World Bank's latest Commodity Markets Outlook report.
October 25, 2022--Executive summary
The 2022 report of the Lancet Countdown is published as the world confronts profound and concurrent systemic shocks. Countries and health systems continue to contend with the health, social, and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, while Russia's invasion of Ukraine and a persistent fossil fuel overdependence has pushed the world into global energy and cost-of-living crises.
October 25, 2022--Services have become significantly more tradable in the first two decades of the 21st century. This paper documents that trade costs for financial services, communication services and business services fell by between 30% and 60% between 2000 and 2019. Information and communication technology and growth of air traffic have acted as key drivers of this development.
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