Economy

This paper is the third in a series of country and comparative studies that together comprise a research program on services as drivers of economic growth and structural transformation in the Global South. The paper analyzes the pattern of Tunisia's services-led economic growth from 2012- 2022 using a specialized three-category framework: knowledge services (KS), enabling services (ES), and local services (LS). Using data from the OECD Trade in Value Added (TiVA), Trade in Employmen ...

Decarbonization is reconfiguring global relative prices. As clean energy, natural capital, and location-specific assets become dominant industrial inputs, the relative cost of producing low-carbon goods is increasingly determined by geography. Two systematic distortions explain why the expected reallocation of investment toward renewable-rich economies remains incomplete. First, industrial policy interventions, including subsidies, trade barriers, and certification systems, disconne ...

The passage of the US Genius Act in July 2025 has spurred the growth of stablecoins, mostly dollar-based, helping to modernize and improve payment transactions. The market capitalization of stablecoins increased rapidly to $317 billion in April 2026 and is expected to grow to $3-4 trillion by 2030. While still modest in scale, stablecoins—if fully developed, especially in the face of potentially strong competition from tokenized bank deposits—could have multiface ...

Why only globally connected, knowledge-intensive services — not local services — can drive long-term development and productivity growth. This Commentary was originally published on stimson.org For decades, manufacturing was considered the indispensable engine of economic development, creating jobs, boosting productivity, and integrating countries into global markets. But automation, robotics, and intensifying global competition have made industrialization far harder for d ...

This Paper was originally published on mitvim.org.il This paper argues that the reconstruction of Gaza will depend not only on the amount of funding mobilized, but on how financing is structured, governed, and anchored within a broader politi`cal context. In a setting shaped by movement restrictions and weak institutions, financial design is not neutral but shapes priorities, distributes power, and determines what can be implemented on the ground. The paper examines the key cha ...

Closing Morocco's gender employment gap could increase GDP per capita by 40-50 percent; yet female labor force participation stands at just 19 percent—among the lowest in the world and still declining. This policy paper argues that investing in the care economy is not merely a social expenditure, but a productive economic strategy with measurable returns. Drawing on international evidence from Uruguay, Mexico, Colombia, and India, the brief demonstrates that well-designed care syste ...