CAMBRIDGE — Reacting to Silicon Valley Bank’s sudden collapse, André Esteves, a senior Brazilian banking executive, recently told Bloomberg that “SVB’s interest rate risk would’ve been obvious to any banking intern in Latin America”.

CAMBRIDGE — For three decades, businesses and governments around the world operated under the assumption that economic and financial globalisation will continue apace.

CAMBRIDGE — On the 40th anniversary of her accession to the throne, Queen Elizabeth II remarked that, “1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an annus horribilis”.

CAMBRIDGE  —  The United Kingdom has had a sobering ten days, with its economy, financial system and citizens’ well-being suddenly at risk.

CAMBRIDGE  —  Financial markets’ reaction to the US Federal Reserve’s (Fed) latest policy move was reminiscent more of developing countries than of the world’s most powerful economy.

 CAMBRIDGE  —  It has been seven months since Europe and the United States imposed tough economic and financial sanctions on Russia, a G-20 country that was the world’s eleventh-largest economy on the eve of its invasion of Ukraine.

CAMBRIDGE — Big shocks to the global economy, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, understandably capture the most attention. But a new worldwide pattern of “little fires everywhere” may be equally consequential for longer-term economic well-being.

CAMBRIDGE — The International Monetary Fund’s revised World Economic Outlook (WEO) is sobering. It is rare for the organisation to revise down sharply its projections for economic growth just one quarter into the calendar year.

CAMBRIDGE  —  A close friend who has been incredibly successful in his tech career once observed that an initial suboptimal decision is likely to lead to a series of subsequent bad decisions. Economists call this “multiple equilibria”.