Elections, rates, AI and China

China is stepping up efforts to stabilise growth after it sagged last year to a three-decade low. But by piling more debt on an already highly leveraged economy, Beijing looks to be storing up problems for the future.

Almost a decade on from the sovereign debt crisis, we explore whether the euro zone’s peripheral economies have materially improved or old vulnerabilities will again become apparent as growth slows.

Trade wars have disrupted supply chains and weighed on stock performance in emerging markets. But as manufacturing companies shift production away from China to evade tariffs, some of its neighbours are thriving.

With cheap loans returning to the European Central Bank’s toolkit, questions must be asked again about the health of the region’s banks.

The idea that in one’s sixties it might be time to step out of work and retire into a life of leisure is relatively recent. But with more people living longer, expectations of retirement are being reshaped.

Around the world, political and economic liberalisation have gone hand in hand since the early 1980s. However, as more countries turn to populist leaders, could the world be about to fall out of love with free-market economics too?

Brexit continues to dominate headlines in the UK, but the European Union faces other long-term challenges, from the rise of Euroscepticism in Italy to the stalled progress of euro zone reform.

The received wisdom on the euro zone is that it needs to become more tightly integrated to survive. To ensure the resilience of the monetary union, fiscal transfers to peripheral economies and risk-sharing via the mutual issuance of Eurobonds are necessary and perhaps inevitable. Princeton economist Ashoka Mody takes a different view.

How will the rise of emerging Asian economies affect the global balance of market and economic power? AIQ speaks to a leading authority on the subject.

Central bank independence is widely regarded as a prerequisite for successful monetary policy. However, with economies having struggled over the past decade and inflation no longer seen as a problem, that view is being contested, argues Stewart Robertson, chief economist at Aviva Investors.

Greenback’s role as a haven is threatened by US debt load and cyclical shortcomings

In our Big Interview, David Miliband talks to AIQ about the growing humanitarian emergency in war-torn countries, the retreat from global engagement by the West and the future of centre-left politics.