Institutional research & analysis

Source: VoxEU

RESEARCH

Research ColumnApril 29, 2026

Reconfiguring Europe in a fractured global economy: The Florence Report

The dramatic developments unfolding globally, spanning wars, geopolitical shifts, and trade disruptions, have caught Europe off balance. The 2026 Florence Report urges the EU to replace its broken ‘reduced responsibility model’ with a New European Social Contract integrating defence, finance, and the supply of public goods. In this column, the editors of the report argue that this shift would reclaim European agency by compensating the EU’s lack of external support and building mutual trust r...

VoxEU1 min read

Research ColumnApril 28, 2026

When public money multiplies, and when it does not: A guide to the catalytic effect of blended finance

Achieving sustainable development goals needs blended finance, where public money is used to crowd in larger private capital flows. The catalytic multiplier is a central metric, which is the increase in total project size per dollar of public expenditure. This column uses a model to provide operational guidance on the use of blended finance. The policy recommendations depend on the nature of the market failure (production externality, financial frictions, or credit rationing) and the instrume...

VoxEU1 min read

Research ColumnApril 27, 2026

Geopolitical oil price shocks: Why these shocks hit harder

When geopolitical crises strike, oil prices often surge, with consequences that extend far beyond energy markets. This column shows that oil price shocks associated with geopolitical tensions differ markedly from those observed under normal conditions. They generate sharper price increases relative to production declines, trigger a distinctive inventory cycle driven by precautionary behaviour, and lead to persistent macroeconomic contractions. Importantly, these shocks produce no clear winner...

VoxEU1 min read

Research ColumnApril 26, 2026

Why liquidity evaporates when it is most needed

A common feature of flash crash episodes in financial markets is that liquidity vanishes precisely when it is most needed. This column argues that this fragility can emerge as an equilibrium property when market participants cannot observe each other’s positions and order flow. Higher opacity degrades liquidity in good equilibria, creates the potential for bad equilibria, hurts the traders who most need to trade, and lowers welfare. Targeted transparency measures that reduce uncertainty about...

VoxEU1 min read

Research ColumnApril 25, 2026

Using global shocks as a laboratory to study executive pay

It is often claimed that executives reap rewards from favourable market tailwinds they did nothing to create. This column uses two decades of Danish data to argue that this ‘pay for luck’ critique requires more nuance. While CEOs do receive higher pay when global conditions are favourable, the authors find that boards reward the effort required to capitalise on those favourable conditions as well as to mitigate losses in the face of negative shocks. The findings suggest that globalisation doe...

VoxEU1 min read

Research ColumnApril 24, 2026

Challenging inequalities: How we got stuck and where we go next

In many advanced economies, including the UK, progress towards a fairer society appears to have stalled. Deep structural forces – including weak earnings growth, rising wealth divides, regional disparities and declining social mobility – are reshaping life chances and fuelling political discontent. A new book drawing on the IFS Deaton Review, “Challenging Inequalities”, argues that inequality must be understood as a dynamic, multidimensional process spanning income, work, wealth, place and he...

VoxEU1 min read

Research ColumnApril 24, 2026

When privacy protects but excludes: The hidden costs of data restrictions in digital lending

Privacy regulations empower consumers, but they can also cut off credit for the populations that digital lenders were built to serve. Using application-level data on loan requests around a major policy change in India, this column reveals a stark trade-off: stronger data protections boost loan demand yet trigger tighter screening by lenders. This disproportionately excludes low-income, young, and first-time borrowers, and locks them out of formal finance for years. Overall, the analysis highl...

VoxEU1 min read

Research ColumnApril 23, 2026

Who Really Drives Innovation

Paolo Surico (London Business School & CEPR) joins Tim Phillips to discuss his ambitious new study tracing the macroeconomic impact of publicly funded innovation across the post-war United States. Drawing on granular patent data, Surico and his co-authors find that NIH and NSF — not the Pentagon — are the agencies most closely associated with productivity-boosting breakthroughs. The key, he argues, isn't whether innovation is military, medical, or educational in origin. It's whether it is roo...

VoxEU1 min read

Research ColumnApril 23, 2026

“Us versus them”: How political propaganda polarises beliefs without providing any news

Political polarisation is often attributed to misinformation, echo chambers, or biased news. But new experimental evidence suggests that merely making a social conflict salient – without providing any information at all – is enough to sharply increase disagreement on both factual and normative questions. This column discusses how politicians and media can ‘artificially’ amplify societal tensions by strategically choosing which conflicts to highlight, and why this mechanism is harder to counte...

VoxEU1 min read

Research ColumnApril 23, 2026

How a nation was born: Lessons from four centuries of Brazilian growth

Contemporary debates about Brazil’s growth potential often frame it as a modern problem, but new research on long run development demonstrates that some of the country’s growth challenges have roots stretching back centuries. This column uses data from 1574 to 1920 to provide a fresh perspective. Brazil's economy remained stationary for over 200 years. The end of slavery in 1888 coincided with the first sustained rise in Brazilian GDP per capita, suggesting a tight link between the end of coe...

VoxEU1 min read

Research ColumnApril 22, 2026

Cost-effective freshwater biodiversity impact reporting for banks: Evidence from pollution exposure near protected areas

As the EU tightens sustainability reporting, one challenge stands out: measuring biodiversity impacts without imposing disproportionate compliance costs. This column introduces a spatially grounded approach, using public pollution registers, Natura 2000 data and environmental footprint calculation models, which offers a practical way forward for banks seeking to meet regulatory expectations. The evidence shows that proximity to sensitive ecosystems is a key driver of biodiversity risk – and o...

VoxEU1 min read

Research ColumnApril 21, 2026

Central bank independence: An update

Central bank independence refers to the absence of political influence on monetary policymaking. It is widely accepted that independence acts as a commitment device to achieve price stability. Despite evidence that central bank reforms towards greater independence have led to lower inflation, this column shows that there is still ample evidence for political pressure on central banks. The pressure is most often to ease monetary policy and frequently has the intended effect. This occurs throug...

VoxEU1 min read