This blog briefly reviews various projections for economic development to 2050 and takes a closer look at arguably the most authoritative assessment of what the longer-term future might hold for development, the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), produced for the IPCC.

News broke last week that indicated the US Supreme Court is likely to strike down Roe v. Wade, a 50-year-old precedent protecting the right to abortion. If the court’s final opinion reflects what the current draft does, it will mean that women in the United States have less legally protected bodily ...

Since the start of the 20th century, global average life expectancy has risen from 32 to 72 years. The introduction of antimicrobials—such as antibiotics—to treat infections, combined with vaccines and improved infection control, helped significantly reduce the risks from infectious diseases, which ...

Local elections are rarely pulse-quickening affairs in the UK; turnout tends to be something akin to county cricket match on a rainy day—that’s two men and a dog, for those who have never partaken of the peculiar pleasures of the English County Championship—but today something a little more exciting...

Rising inequality within major economies of the world has now been well documented. Recent Vox columns include, for example, Dorn and Levell (2022), Lansing and Markiewicz (2018), Ravallion and Chen (2021), and Kanbur (2020). But what is happening to global inequality, meaning inequality across all ...

The US government wants to fund as many new clean energy projects in Africa as possible, but the pool of bankable utility-scale generation projects is running dry. In 2021, the DFC approved none. To accelerate Africa’s energy transition and scale its clean energy markets, the US needs to focus far m...

In a recent note, we asked whether IDA, the arm of the World Bank that provides concessional lending to the poorest countries, has the right approach for determining the balance between grants and loans which its recipients receive. We noted that IDA concessionality depends on the level of recipient...