Economy Archives - Polycrisis

Nature and Biodiversity Loss: A Research Agenda for Financial Economics

The authors outline a research agenda to deepen understanding of the economic and financial consequences of nature and biodiversity loss, emphasizing that ecosystem degradation and climate change are intertwined through a “Twin-Crises Multiplier.” They introduce a model in which ecosystem services are direct inputs to economic production, and their loss amplifies both environmental and financial

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Global Systemic Stresses: Understanding the Drivers of Polycrisis

This report introduces the Cascade Institute’s Stress-Trigger-Crisis model, a systemic framework that distinguishes between slow-moving stresses that erode the resilience of global systems and fast-moving trigger events that precipitate crises. It identifies 14 global systemic stresses that affect nine vital systems: climate, ecology, food, energy, economy, infrastructure, health, social order and governance, and world order.

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Cascading Failure, Financial Network and Systemic Risk

This paper addresses the challenge of accurately measuring systemic risk by introducing a novel indicator, Expected Shortfall Rank (ESRank), which accounts for cascading failures and network effects often overlooked in traditional models. Using LASSO to construct tail risk networks among financial institutions and ΔCoES to simulate contagion dynamics, the study develops a general cascading failure

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Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations: Intertwined Crises, Multiple Vulnerabilities

This report examines the complex and compounding challenges facing economies in fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS). It highlights how overlapping crises—such as armed conflict, institutional fragility, climate-related disasters, commodity price volatility, and global economic shocks—interact to deepen poverty, food insecurity, and deficits in human development across FCS economies. The report calls for targeted, sequenced policy

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International Finance and the Global Polycrisis

This article explores the pivotal role of international finance in shaping political responses to four major global crises: the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the climate emergency, and the intensifying geoeconomic rivalry between China and the United States. It highlights how financial mobilization has varied across these crises, serving distinct strategic purposes and

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Ten Principles for Transforming Economics in a Time of Global Crises

The authors present a qualitative analysis of 238 sources spanning 38 alternative economic approaches and identify ten shared principles for transforming economics in response to the global polycrisis. These principles include social–ecological embeddedness, limits to growth, equity, and post-capitalist thinking, and span ecological, social, political economy and holistic domains. Seeking to bring coherence to a

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World Economic Outlook : A Critical Juncture amid Policy Shifts

The April 2025 World Economic Outlook presents a global economy navigating a complex web of interrelated shocks and policy shifts. Following years of disruption, growth remains subdued and vulnerable to escalating trade tensions, particularly after the United States imposed near-universal tariffs, prompting widespread countermeasures. These developments have triggered systemic effects across trade, inflation, investment, and

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Polycrisis and the Thucydides Trap. In: War and the World Economy

In this chapter, William Jefferies examines polycrisis as a framework for understanding the interconnected and compounding challenges facing the contemporary world—including environmental degradation, economic inequality, geopolitical tensions, and democratic backsliding. Situating these developments in the post-Cold War era, the chapter critically engages with the ideological legacy of Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History” thesis and the

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