Macroeconomic prospects in an unstable environment

A year before the COVID-19 outbreak, we argued in Winning the ’20s that the basis of competitive advantage was shifting. The combination of technology-fueled change, the rise of new learning technologies, and declining long-term growth rates, which require accelerated innovation, called for companies to compete on their rate of learning.

The report published by UNCTAD studies the impact of frontier technologies on countries depending on their incomes and level of development. The report covers 11 of such frontier technologies, i.e. key technologies of the future: artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the Internet of things (IoT), 3D printing, blockchain, big data, 5G, gene editing, drones, etc.

The World Investment Report 2021 by UNCTAD deals with global and regional investment trends and national and international policy developments. The report also reviews investment in sustainable development and shows the influence of investment policies on public health and economic recovery from the pandemic.

The Research Centre NAFI has published the results of a survey which show that most Russians didn’t go on holiday during summer 2020, and those who did mostly travelled by car.