White Papers
IMF Working Paper The Economic Implications of the Energy Transition in Asia-Pacific
January 9, 2026--Summary
This paper examines the economic effects of the global energy transition and the large uncertainty surrounding future fossil fuel demand on countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Under the paper's baseline, coal demand is expected to shrink by 15 percent by 2035, although depending on global policy ambition and technological uptake, the decline could be as large as 45 percent.
Model simulations indicate that one-third of global coal capital stock and one-quarter of Asia-Pacific coal capital stock could become stranded if the speed of the transition is underestimated.
By contrast, global natural gas faces both upside and downside risks: when energy policy targets coal alone, natural gas extraction benefits, prompting an 18 percent rise in capital stock, whereas a fuel-agnostic transition would reduce gas capital stock by 16 percent. Impacts differ across countries, with high-cost coal exporters facing early losses, low-cost producers potentially gaining market share, and some gas exporters benefiting under select scenarios. At the same time, new growth opportunities will emerge for countries with strong critical mineral endowments and green energy potential.
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Source: imf.org
Four Futures for the New Economy: Geoeconomics and Technology in 2030
January 12, 2025-Four Futures for the New Economy: Geoeconomics and Technology in 2030 explores how the powerful interplay between geopolitical shifts and rapid technological change is reshaping the global economic landscape.
Produced as part of the Scenarios for the Global Economy Dialogue Series, the white paper presents four distinct futures for 2030 that emerge from different trajectories of geopolitical stability and technology adoption.
It offers a clear, structured lens to understand how forces such as artificial intelligence (AI) commercialization, supply chain reconfiguration, regulatory fragmentation and rising volatility may influence growth, labour markets, trade and business competitiveness.
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Source: World Economic Forum
The Multi-Trillion Dollar Growth Opportunity: New Report Shows Green Economy Expected to Surpass $7 Trillion in Annual Value by 2030
December 2, 2025-New report reveals that green revenues are growing twice as fast as conventional revenues on average, while companies involved in green markets often secure cheaper capital and typically enjoy valuation premiums.
Yet green markets are moving at different speeds, with mature solutions such as solar, wind, batteries and electric vehicles achieving cost competitiveness at the global level, while costly technologies such as low-carbon hydrogen and carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) require substantial support to bend the cost curve.
Businesses across industries are already benefiting from the strong growth of the green economy, the second-fastest growing sector over the past decade. A new report, Already a Multi-Trillion-Dollar Market: A CEO Guide to Growth in the Green Economy, finds that the green economy has already reached $5 trillion a year and is on track to exceed $7 trillion within the decade.
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Source: World Economic Forum (WEF)
IMF Working Paper Demographics and Consumption in Asia Toward 2050
November 21, 2025-Summary
What are the implications of demographics on total consumption and its sectoral composition in Asia toward 2050? Although the literature has studied total consumption and individual consumption categories separately, the research that studies both is scarce.
Using household consumption surveys from seven Asian economies and UN population projections, we find that (1) the compositional effects of demographics on total consumption can be large when middle-aged population changes rapidly, (2) due to aging, some categories, including education and transport, may grow slower than others, like health, and (3) the implications are uncertain due to factors like economic growth, fertility, and migration.
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Source: imf.org
IMF Working Paper Elections Matter: Capital Flows and Political Cycles
November 19, 2025-Summary
How should central banks explore tokenized reserves? Central banks are increasingly exploring how to make their reserves available to selected banks using distributed ledger technology, referred to as tokenized reserves.
This chapter covers policy objectives for tokenized reserves, operating models and roles of central banks, implications for monetary policy implementation, alternative solutions, and implementation strategies. Ultimately, central banks’ strategic decisions and policy options will vary across jurisdictions, reflecting differences in available resources, legal systems, and policy priorities.
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Source: imf.org
IMF Working Paper Elections Matter: Capital Flows and Political Cycles
November 14, 2025-Summary
This paper contributes to the relatively limited literature on the impact of political uncertainty on international capital flows to emerging market economies. We incorporate elections as a proxy for political uncertainty into a standard push-pull framework for analyzing capital flows.
Using quarterly data for a panel of 38 emerging market economies from 1990 to 2020, we show that periods surrounding elections are associated with a decline in gross private capital inflows.
This adverse impact is larger and more persistent when uncertainty extends beyond the election period, for example in the context of uncertain policy priorities following incumbent’s loss. By contrast, higher levels of overall political stability appear to mitigate these adverse effects. We also find evidence that stronger institutions, as reflected in indicators such as regulatory quality and rule of law, help to mitigate the adverse effects of political uncertainty on capital flows. The results remain robust across a range of alternative specifications, including controls for standard economic drivers of capital flows, election characteristics, and model assumptions.
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Source: imf.org
Hidden in Plain Sight: Physical Risk in Asset Owners' Portfolios
November 3, 2025-Corporate asset locations are a critical source of financial-risk intelligence for investors. More so when coupled with powerful overlays related to physical climate risk.
MSCI's new study, conducted in collaboration with Swiss Re Risk Data Solutions, analyzed more than 11,000 companies and 500,000 physical assets underpinning the listed-equity portfolios of 18 leading asset owners, representing USD 4 trillion in AUM.
Key takeaways:
Potential business-interruption risk is 14 times larger than asset damage risk
55% of companies are severely exposed to physical risk hazards today
89% of assets face multiple overlapping hazards
Clear adaptation gap demands investor engagement, only 16% of those exposed firms formally disclose integration of physical risk management
Physical risk exposures are global, regardless of regional investment focus. Hazards such as wildfires, droughts and heat waves often compound and are already affecting portfolio companies worldwide.
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Source: msci.com
New ICI Paper Outlines Key Considerations for ETF Share Class
October 6, 2025-The Investment Company Institute (ICI) has published a new paper exploring the operational considerations for launching an ETF share class within an existing mutual fund portfolio. The expected SEC relief for funds with both ETF and mutual fund share classes provides an opportunity to broaden investor choice, promote efficiency and economies of scale, and enhance competition in the asset management sector.
The paper, ETF Share Class Operational Considerations, comes on the heels of the Securities and Exchange Commission's notice on September 29, 2025 that it intends to begin grant exemptive relief permitting dual share class funds shortly.
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Source: Investment Company Institute
Physical AI is changing manufacturing - here's what the era of intelligent robotics looks like
September 9, 2025-Physical AI is driving a new phase of industrial automation, offering a powerful solution to manufacturing challenges like rising costs, labour shortages,and shifting customer demands.
A new World Economic Forum white paper examines how breakthroughs in AI, sensors, and hardware are creating a new breed of smarter, more agile industrial robots.
Early adopters like Amazon and Foxconn are already seeing significant benefits, including improved efficiency, faster delivery times, and the creation of new skilled jobs.
Automation helped shape the First Industrial Revolution – and it continues to evolve in today's Fourth. While automation has long been part of the manufacturing landscape, recent advances in artificial intelligence, vision systems and robotics hardware are enabling a new generation of more intelligent and adaptable machines.
A new white paper from the World Economic Forum, Physical AI: Powering the New Age of Industrial Operations, explores how these developments are expanding the role of robotics - not just to boost efficiency, but to support greater flexibility and resilience on the factory floor.
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Source: World Economic Forum
Economic development, carbon emissions and climate policies
September 8, 2025-If economic activity is considered the primary driver of climate change through emissions of carbon dioxide, then supporting economic growth and fighting emissions would appear to be at odds. However, the process of economic development may itself foster complementarity between GDP growth and emissions reductions.
Such complementary in the relationship between economic development and emissions reduction might reflect changes in the industrial composition of economic activity, technological advancements or environmental consciousness.This view is in line with the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis: that per-capita income growth is associated with increases in carbon emissions up to a certain threshold of economic development, but beyond that threshold, higher per-capita incomes are associated with lower emissions per capita. The EKC hypothesis, suggests that economic development is actually a pathway to environmental improvements.
We test the EKC hypothesis for 191 countries over 1989-2022, enabling us to study the overall validity of the EKC hypothesis at global level.
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Source: bruegel.org
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