Authoritarians, strongmen and dictators: who is on Trump’s Board of Peace?

“If Mastercard and Visa were turned off, it would send us back to the 1950s,” before cards dominated the UK economy, and businesses wholly relied on cash, one executive familiar with the project told the Guardian. “Of course, we need a sovereign payments system.”

Using data from 115 conflicts & 145 countries over the past 75 years, Efraim Benmelech & Joao Monteiro show wars cause large and persistent declines in democratic institutions. This is true of first-time conflicts, internal wars, and conflicts that governments win. cepr.org/voxeu/column... #EconSky

@voxeu.org now offers a newsletter with a list of all columns published last week. You can subscribe by going to the link below and selecting VoxEU - weekly digest. Best source for research insights about pressing economic policy questions. cepr.us10.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=...

We just posted a large update to our paper on stablecoins’ impact on Treasury bill yields www.bis.org/publ/work127...

The trade deals with the EU and the US, along with other reforms recently implemented hold the potential to transform India into a paragon of openness and a manufacturing powerhouse, Arvind Subramanian argues in the Economist.

I was a White House ethics lawyer. I used to advise people not to even accept a free cup of coffee from someone who had interests before them. And staff followed those rules. I can’t even find the words to describe the scale of Trump’s corruption here.

My take on Kevin Warsh: Markets have breathed a sigh of relief that Trump isn't trying to install Hassett as Fed chair. But Warsh is also a political animal; he just hides it better. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/01/o...

Not only he praises Trump's policies in order to get a job but he pretends that reducing central bank balance sheet will move capital towards the economy (makes zero sense). And despite this, you still have many stating that he will be a good Fed Chair.

What you can expect from Warsh as Fed Chair -More emphasis on what suits POTUS if it's a Republican -Sudden concerns about inflation and fiscal deficits the moment it's not an R in the WH. Don't expect the Fed to be a good-faith broker if govt is divided in the next crisis

Big immigration decline. Agreement among different agencies' estimates. Downward adjustments coming soon to the CPS. And revisions to state populations: New York up, Florida down. Key takeaways from today's new Census population estimates for 2025. jedkolko.substack.com/p/four-takea...

The FOMC is now in great hands. It just has to vote the opposite way to its new chair on all the big calls, and it will have a 100% track record 🤣

A good description of Kevin Warsh paulkrugman.substack.com/p/a-bad-heir...

Consumer confidence collapses #EconSky econbrowser.com/archives/202...

Judging from Brazil’s experience under the military regime, I’d say the opposition party needs to actively help mobilize civil society. A demobilized society won’t defeat the regime electorally, and mobilization needs help from organized opposition parties.

I’ve found @abenewman.bsky.social ‘s neoroyalist frame very useful for thinking about Trump’s actions. I’m not sure anything fits the model better than the Board of peace. Not about US national interest at all. Purely for Trump and his family/cronies.

Europeans must learn two lessons from this week: a) They can with their statements move markets b) Trump has limited capacity to allow for bad economic news (or signals) in 2026 because of the mid-term elections

How is Brexit going?

Maybe I should not be surprised but how can the WEF offer a platform for the creation of a "Board of Peace" where the Chairman is Donald Trump (not the president of the US) and he will elect the next Chairman? And why does the media forget to discuss this? www.ft.com/content/3c5e...

This time, Europe’s leaders played the EU-US trade game well. From the Franco-German tough line to Meloni’s off-ramps, backed by a credible €93bn retaliation threat, they made escalation for Trump costly, and de-escalation easy. Markets and US politics did the rest — Rutte scoring on the assist.

Net migration is key to understand growth and sustainability of debt. Because of this, it is frustrating how difficult it is to find good data on current population trends.

New VoxTalks Economics w/ @talknormal.co.uk: Is US debt sustainable? Recorded at the CEPR Annual Symposium, @upanizza.bsky.social @gvagrad.bsky.social and @antoniofatas.bsky.social discuss rising US debt, recent fiscal policy, and the limits of delay. Listen here: cepr.org/multimedia/u... #EconSky

« The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy. But from the fracture, we can build something better, stronger, and more just. »  A remarkable speech by 🇨🇦 Prime Minister ⁦‪@mark-carney.bsky.social‬⁩.

Media may not have noticed that Trump’s Board of Peace Charter was drafted so that the US need NOT ratify and become a party.Trump’s current status as US President is a necesary stepping stone but his unitary rule in the new international organisation would be personal, permanent and even hereditary

I’ve been reading Trump’s "Board of Peace Charter," and despite the name, this isn’t a multilateral institution, it’s a centralised structure built entirely around the authority of one person (Trump). www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-ch...

I guess the decrease in trade policy uncertainty is about to be reversed?

G Egorov, S Guriev, M Mironov, & E Zhuravskaya show Argentinian voters more outraged w/ information provided about candidates were more active in communicating w/ networks than voters who agreed w/ the message, creating a result opposite of the campaign's intention. cepr.org/voxeu/column... #EconSky

Every year since 2021 I have been doing a webinar on the state of the global economy, mostly for the INSEAD community but it is open to anyone. This year it will be next week (January 21 at 12:00pm (CET)). If interested, register here: lnkd.in/gz7TqBcn

Large & persistent changes in tariffs affect firms' #innovation decisions and the pattern of technological hegemony. Countries should be wary of using trade policies to boost innovation, as the strategy may easily backfire. @lucafornaro.bsky.social & Martin Wolf cepr.org/voxeu/column... #EconSky

I'm just not convinced that the Bundesbank was the only reason Germany avoided wage-price spirals in the 70s.. whole institutional setup was different with unions etc

I think evidence is less clear because measuring independence is more complex than in 1980s where there was a clear distinction between say Germany and the UK. But bigger point: independence of the US federal reserve might not just be about US inflation because of the global reach of the USD.

Central bank chiefs unite behind Jay Powell amid US probe into Fed chief ft.trib.al/dLb8CGA

Central bank independence - the latest evidence based thinking. Non-partisan take: Threatening the central bank chair leads to higher inflation with no gain in growth (recent studies and experience bears this out). www.piie.com/publications...

Many will see these events as the latest episode in a new era of so-called “fiscal dominance” with tricky implications as.ft.com/r/6b57c388-2...

Will we see again some short-term market reaction followed by the attitude "this is bad, but it will be ok"? Or will markets start pricing the future?

In addition, whomever is running the Fed after May knows that if Fed decisions are not what Trump expects, they will be served a criminal investigation. That's how independence dies: making political appointments + the threat of retaliation if decisions are not what the administration wants.

Well said

Great timing for the article

With reference to our recent bulletin on the changing financing patterns of the AI boom.

FT journos starter pack… go.bsky.app/FuqnwdD

They are aware and providing content to support a platform that commits ilegal activities. Posts on X are the product that is being sold. So glad that they are seriously (?) looking into this matter.

Argentina pays US swap back, but apparently no-one knows where the country obtained the dollars www.ft.com/content/b721...

Y’all look like you a need a break from the news cycle. Why not read our new Bulletin on the how the financing of the AI boom is shifting from cash flow to debt financing!? www.bis.org/publ/bisbull...

Very good summary of why 2025 was not business as usual for the world economy and instead it was the year when everything changed. From Gita Gopinath (former First Deputy Managing Director and Chief Economist of the IMF).

Real-time indicator of #Eurozone economy rose slightly in December 2025; positive indications for the performance of services continued to support #Eurocoin, which also benefited from signs of recovery in the construction sector, @cepr.org @voxeu.org cepr.org/about/news/e...

A new paper by George Borjas—who served this past year in the Trump White House designing some of its anti-immigration policies—claims to display evidence of ideological bias among researchers who study immigration. doi.org/10.1126/scia... 🧵 Thread—>

Who’s who at X, the deepfake porn site formerly known as Twitter - as.ft.com/r/2f3e7a51-e...