EM convergence to rich-world wealth levels is concentrated in Europe and Asia. When I read a recent piece by Ruchir Sharma about a growth revival under way in emerging markets, I had to start investigating. Apparently, a higher-than usual proportion of EMs (88%!) will have GDP per capita growth higher than the US in 2025-29, […]

2024: string of electoral victories for right-wing populists across emerging markets Right-wing populism In order to help you EM aficionados cut through the political news cycle noise, it’s necessary take a step back and think about the direction of travel of EM politics. Let’s not bury the lede: by my count, the political winds in […]

It’s not just the usual suspects: some oil exporters also have low official reserves levels. When writing last week’s piece on the IMF’s shoddy deal with Pakistan, I was blown away at the country’s astonishingly-low level of international reserves. $9.5 billion for a $350 billion economy. That’s only around 3% of GDP and 1-2 months […]

Pakistan and the IMF recently agreed on a program worth $7 billion, which appears woefully insufficient to resolve the country’s macroeconomic imbalances. The Fund claims that the Extended Fund Facility over the next 37 months intends to “cement macroeconomic stability and create conditions for a stronger, more inclusive, and resilient growth.” But this nothingburger of […]

Looking across the emerging markets complex, Turkey stands out as one of the larger, systemic EMs that is rapidly headed in the wrong direction. Inflation has of course been the main symptom of imbalances in the economy, gyrating between 40-80% since 2022. It currently stands at around 70%, despite the central bank hiking the policy […]

In last week’s post, I discussed savings and investment across large emerging markets and the G7 countries. As has been well-documented, imbalances in the G7 have profound consequences not only on domestic economies and the rise of populism. High consumption and the low savings that result across the G7, especially ex-Japan / Germany, means that […]

The past few weeks of political headlines have provided yet more confirmation of a long-term trend: the distinction between emerging and developed markets is less clear than it once was. Emerging and frontier markets are less politically stable, or so the old consensus goes. Yet Emmanuel Macron has flown in the face of all that […]

Behold the dashboard for low- and middle-income country external sovereign debt! After peaking at $188 billion in 2021, for the first time in two decades the stock of low- and middle-income country sovereign debt that China holds declined in 2022. At just under $181 billion, this is still more than the US, France, the UK, […]

EMDE sovereign borrowers walk a tightrope in the fragmented creditor landscape. One of the main themes permeating the 7th edition of the Sovereign Debt Research and Management Conference – aka “DebtCon” – held in Paris on 29-31 May was the increasingly challenging environment that sovereign borrowers face in accessing international capital and managing their balance […]

With the African National Congress party having endured a crushing defeat in South Africa’s election on May 29th, the political horse-trading around forming a minority government is already well under way. The final tally shows the ANC receiving 40% of the votes and 159 of the parliament’s 400 seats, a sharp drop from the 230 […]

Emmanuel Macron wasn’t the only person traveling from France to Berlin last week: I was as well, to attend the inaugural Berlin Energy Forum on May 21st. Here are the key takeaways: Missed opportunity The West had the opportunity to wreck the Russian economy in 2022, as its sanctions in response to the Russian military’s […]

Today’s charts are an update of the Sovereign Vibe sovereign debt stress tracker initially released in 2023. This tool is based directly on the IMF’s Debt Sustainability Framework for Market-Access Countries, released in 2021, and is relevant only for countries that “principally receive financing through market-based instruments and on non-concessional terms.” Through extensive testing, the […]