China versus the West

With an ageing population, rising debt and vulnerabilities in the property market, China risks following Japan’s path from runaway growth to financial crisis and stagnation. Can Xi’s government rebalance the economy and change course?

In this month’s instalment of our visual series on topical themes, we look at how political events have shaped markets in 2022 and further back in time.

Governments around the world would do well to heed the lessons of recent chaotic events in Britain that concluded with Liz Truss becoming the country’s shortest-lived prime minister.

To help tackle the climate emergency, financial institutions and governments must work together to reform the global financial architecture and create a more robust net-zero transition plan, argue Steve Waygood and Thomas Tayler.

To restore trust in ESG, we need to be much clearer on its limitations as well as its strengths, argues Mirza Baig.

Asset owners are increasingly committing to net-zero emissions in their portfolios by or before 2050, but it is a huge and complex undertaking. What do asset owners need to consider as they start on their decarbonisation journey?

The UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for the COP26 summit in the UK sets out how the private and public sectors can work together to tackle the climate crisis and other systemic threats. Words by Miles Costello.

The influential academic speaks to AIQ about the flaws in traditional economic thinking and how her revolutionary “Doughnut” offers a fresh approach to solving the world’s greatest problems.

A series of market failures have brutally exposed the shortcomings of Modern Portfolio Theory. However, market participants play an active role in markets; they are not mere bystanders. Understanding this could provide a better way to think about and deal with systematic risk.

Financial services underpin all economic activity, which itself depends on Earth’s natural capital. Resolving their interconnected issues to bring about a just transition will require a holistic, systems-thinking approach.

A distorted sense of reality has caused us to disregard sustainability concerns when modelling economies, companies and finance. We can no longer ignore such material issues just because they are too hard to fathom. This is where systems thinking comes in, explains Steve Waygood.

Asset managers and other financial institutions have a duty to act in the best interests of their customers and society. Macro stewardship will be crucial to meeting these responsibilities, argues Mark Versey.