Global Economics and Development
ORF America conducts programs and research around more effective development policies, strengthening global value chains, coordinating foreign assistance initiatives, and fostering entrepreneurship in the developing world.
Experts:
By Anit Mukherjee
India’s tariff troubles in the short term are an opportunity to undertake a strategic revaluation of its export strategy at a time when the global trading system itself is in turmoil.
By Anit Mukherjee and Caroline Arkalji
The consecutive presidencies of Indonesia, India, Brazil, and South Africa within the G20 offers a blueprint for how the Global South can continue shaping global governance at a time of geopolitical uncertainty and a rapid rebalancing of the globalization process itself.
By Marta Bengoa
What began as April's "Liberation Day" announcement has evolved into a complex framework of negotiated settlements that, while avoiding the most severe outcomes initially threatened, creates new economic distortions across multiple trading relationships.
By Anit Mukherjee
The BRICS Leader’s Declaration lays out in detail the process for a revision of quotas at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, representation of the Global South in the governance of artificial intelligence and other transformative technologies that will shape the future, and increasing the accessibility and affordability of climate finance.
By Anit Mukherjee and Caroline Arkalji
In the run up to the COP30 climate summit in Brazil, countries are reevaluating the role of biofuels in supporting efforts to accelerate the clean energy transition, particularly in the transportation sector, which accounts for nearly one-quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions.
By Marta Bengoa
What emerges from the London talks is not a coherent policy framework but rather a series of tactical compromises that fail to address underlying strategic challenges.
By Caroline Arkalji
While India is globally recognized for its highly skilled engineering talent, it lags behind its peers in terms of a large, technically trained labor force needed to attract manufacturing investment at scale. To compete, India must align its technical education more closely with industry needs and emphasize skills critical to modern manufacturing.
By Udaibir Das
Amid rising financial instability, slowing growth, trade wars, and persistent inequality, the Global South faces growing vulnerabilities yet remains pivotal to the world economy’s future.
By Udaibir Das
Whether governments seek to phase out energy subsidies, reform pensions, or expand tax bases, success now hinges on how well reforms are explained, sequenced, and backed by credible commitments.
By Anit Mukherjee
How will policymakers rebalance their economies where the three pillars of globalization — free trade, free markets, and free movement of capital — have been affected almost at the same time and what does this mean for the Global South?
By Marta Bengoa
As the global trade conflict intensifies, we must consider not just the direct costs of tariffs but also their profound secondary effects on America's long-term fiscal sustainability.
By Marta Bengoa
The most problematic aspect of the newly announced Trump tariffs may be the deliberate ambiguity around how countries might negotiate lower rates.
By Marta Bengoa
The fundamental contradiction in the Trump administration’s approach to trade policy remains unresolved: a strong economy cannot be built on weak economic thinking. Tariffs are not a strategy; they are a symptom of strategic absence.
By Caroline Arkalji
Policymakers in remittance-dependent nations must consider the broader, long-term effects of U.S. immigration and taxation policies.
By Udaibir Das
By deepening financial resilience, accelerating capital market reforms, and fostering global financial integration, India can reinforce its position as a stable, competitive, and inclusive financial powerhouse—one that is fully aligned with its long-term economic ambitions.
By Marta Bengoa
As this new phase of trade conflict unfolds, both immediate price effects and the longer-term restructuring of economic relationships threaten to undermine decades of productivity gains achieved through global economic integration.
By Udaibir Das
While framed to correct trade imbalances and protect domestic industries, reciprocal tariffs’ effects extend far beyond manufacturers, exporters, and importers.
By Marta Bengoa
The era of frictionless trade has ended. For the industrial heartlands of Brazil, India, Malaysia, and Japan, this could shape economic trajectories for years to come.
By Karan Bhasin
While we do know that global poverty has declined significantly over the last decade, with much of the decline coming from China and India, India’s contribution has not often been well understood or appreciated.
By Marta Bengoa
While the full implications of Trump's latest trade offensive remain to be seen, one thing appears certain: the global trading system is entering uncharted waters, with consequences that will reverberate far beyond the targeted nations.
By Anit Mukherjee
As the DOGE team strides into the corridors of government in Washington DC, what can it learn from Aadhaar?
By Karan Bhasin
A small trade agreement today will help end uncertainty, allowing firms from the United States and India to make significant investments in reorienting supply chains.
By Udaibir Das
When viewed through the lens of financial channels — capital flows, exchange rates, and investment patterns — the implications of the U.S. policy reset for the Global South become clear.
By Udaibir Das
What are the concerns attached to the G20's “Roadmap Towards Better, Bigger, and More Effective Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs)”?
By Anit Mukherjee and Caroline Arkalji
What is IBSA and how can their consecutive G20 presidencies help further the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals on a global scale?
By Caroline Arkalji
How can India’s transition to green energy ensure that new job opportunities are accessible to all workers, especially those in carbon-intensive industries?
By Karan Bhasin
With China’s economy slowing down, many emerging markets that supply critical raw materials for global value chains operating through China have become extremely vulnerable.
By Anit Mukherjee
What is the Global Digital Compact and how can it help nations integrate growing technology into their societies?
By Caroline Arkalji
How are Global South nations tackling the challenges that arise with rapid urbanization?
By Anit Mukherjee
What is the United Nations General Assembly and why does its theme for 2024, the Summit of the Future, matter for globalization?
Recent Events:
Initiatives:
By Udaibir Das
Financial surveillance fails when it matters most. Every major financial disruption – from the 1997 Asian crisis to the 2008 financial crisis or recent geopolitical shocks from wars, sanctions and trade realignments – has exposed how blind spots persist in national systems, regional arrangements and global oversight.
By Karan Bhasin
A lesser-known reality of the GST is that it has a total of eight tax slabs, excluding the exemptions. These start at 0.25 and go all the way up to 28 per cent.
By Udaibir Das
In dynamic-system terms, the global economy has shifted from a high-integration equilibrium towards a more fragmented state, but the transition path is still in motion. For financial institutions, the challenge is calibrating marginal gain in resilience against the marginal erosion of competitive advantage.
By Anit Mukherjee
The Indo-Pacific’s future will be shaped by secure, interoperable digital systems that advance public service delivery, expand financial inclusion, and foster cross-border collaboration.
By Udaibir Das
While financial institutions promote debt swaps as ‘win-win’ solutions that address both debt distress and development financing, borrowing countries report a systematic failure in achieving both objectives, revealing an inversion of development finance principles.
By Udaibir Das
If climate finance is to support transitions that are durable and inclusive, it must evolve to accommodate precisely these kinds of interventions: institutionally grounded, locally designed and systemically significant.
By Anit Mukherjee
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes a key enabler of economic and social transformation, the BRICS grouping — comprising both emerging and influential economies — has a unique opportunity to shape the trajectory of AI development through a Global South lens.
By Udaibir Das
As private digital tokens gain ground, existing oversight and payment monitoring frameworks are struggling to keep pace. While regulators debate their response, the market—driven mainly by U.S.-based technology and market actors—is moving ahead.
By Udaibir Das
China must build on its institutional progress and the policy suggestions noted in the 2025 FSSA while adapting to a more fragmented global financial landscape. The shift from insulation, as pointed out by the IMF in 2010, as well as the shift to sensible integration, as outlined by the IMF in 2025, stays unfinished.
By Udaibir Das
As concessional finance declines, vulnerabilities mount and aid priorities shift, vulnerable low-income countries must increasingly rely on domestic sources of funding. Efficient capital markets are not a luxury – they are foundational infrastructure for economic growth.
By Udaibir Das
The key question is not whether the decline in aid and external assistance will push these economies towards more debt – it already does – but rather what kind of debt they will incur and what long-term implications it will bring.
By Udaibir Das
As AI takes on a greater role in economic analysis and policy, an unsettling question arises: will its ability to recognise systemic risks with historical precedents weaken with a lack of immediate algorithmic reference?
Background Paper No. 30
By Veronica Jijon
By Udaibir Das
The world’s most populous democracy faces a turbulent landscape of geopolitical rivalries, technological shifts and the urgency of climate action. The question remains: will global economic forces propel India toward leadership or will they impede its ascent?
Background Paper No. 29
By Anit Mukherjee and Ashwini Joshi
By Udaibir Das
In 2024, Africa’s economic and political importance grew significantly, laying a strong foundation for 2025 to be a transformative year for the continent.
By Anit Mukherjee
With the Indian prime minister’s and external affairs minister’s recent visits to Latin America, the engagements are a sign of India’s deepening commitment to improve and strengthen strategic and economic ties with the region where it is still playing catch up to China.
"Rebalancing Globalization: Perspectives from the Global South" attempts to provide a framework for the next phase of globalization that is rebalanced and sustainable and can address issues that matter to the Global South.
Edited Volume
By Anit Mukherjee, Dhruva Jaishankar, Alan Gelb, Pamla Gopaul, Marta Bengoa, Shayak Sengupta, Aude Darnal, Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, Udaibir Das, Veronica Jijon, and Lorrayne Porciuncula
Editors: Anit Mukherjee and Dhruva Jaishankar
By Surjit S. Bhalla, Karan Bhasin, and Tirthatanmoy Das
Using a structural micro-econometric model, the roles of both the labor market and the household sector in female labor participation are evaluated to analyze the evolution of India’s labor market.
By Udaibir Das
Where do Brics, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank overlap in their newly released communiques on the global economic landscape?
By Udaibir Das
How do sovereign wealth funds navigate current times while building portfolio resilience?
By Udaibir Das
How can countries with small and shallow financial markets adopt financial stability reports that are more suited for their economic conditions?
By Udaibir Das
How should China refine its financial reform strategy to better align with its economic ambitions and responsibilities?
By Udaibir Das
The decisions from the 20th National Congress and the Third Plenum collectively represent significant strides in reinforcing the financial sector’s role as China recalibrates its growth model.
By Udaibir Das
The UK is poised to make a significant impact with the National Wealth Fund (NWF), a fund designed to spearhead its green transition and support sustainable growth. Will the UK’s NWF be a guiding economic beacon or just a political mirage?
By Udaibir Das
The IMF’s RST is a significant step forward in mobilising climate finance, focused on leveraging private sector involvement. By learning from the RST’s successes and challenges, other international efforts can enhance their strategies to attract private capital, creating a more sustainable and resilient global economy.
By Udaibir Das
To effectively manage debt and all liabilities, a top-down, country-wide reform is necessary to move towards a comprehensive liability management function.
By Udaibir Das and Wayne Byres
After 50 years, the Basel Committee’s standards are crucial for maintaining global financial stability.
By Udaibir Das
The current global economic and capital market conditions necessitate reassessing conventional portfolio construction and risk management practices.
By Udaibir Das
Multilateral reform remains complex and demands patience to ensure that the process is transparent and inclusive.
Observer Research Foundation America, 1100 17th St. NW, Suite 501, Washington DC 20036 USA
