author - oman observer

There are more than 390,000 identified plant species in the world, but just three – rice, maize, and wheat – account for roughly 60 per cent of the plant-based calories in our diets. The dominance...

More than a year after the mass protest movement known as the ‘Aragalaya’ ousted Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sri Lankans have once...

With much of the developing world teetering on the edge of a debt crisis, the calls for a new issuance of special drawing rights (SDRs, the International Monetary Fund’s reserve asset), have grown...

It has taken far too long, but it seems that the International Monetary Fund has finally internalised some hard truths about sovereign-debt reduction. Chief among them is that growing economies have...

The World Economic Forum (WEF)’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, has always been more than a little problematic. But in recent years, the annual gathering of the rich and powerful has become...

After four decades of fostering integration through trade and finance, the global economy has begun a painful process of fragmentation.Initially driven by wealthy countries – namely, the United...

Despite the well-known problems with using gross domestic product as an indicator of human development, policymakers around the world still seem to be obsessed with it.Governments seek to promote GDP...

The main factor limiting the global recovery is not the much-discussed increase in inflation in advanced economies, which is likely to be transient, but rather the massive inequalities between most...

The question of how best to control inflation is back on the economic-policy agenda and opinion is divided about how to address it. The mainstream view emphasises the need for tighter monetary...

The World Inequality Report 2022, produced by the Paris-based World Inequality Lab, is a remarkable document for many reasons – starting with its demonstration of the immense power of patient...

Many people around the world already consider the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow a disappointment. That is a massive understatement. Global leaders – especially in the...

There are many reasons to be critical of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, but the legitimacy crisis now confronting both institutions is not based on any of them. Instead, it has...