Blackouts are normally the result of imbalances in electricity supply and demand. A brief blackout is mostly an inconvenience, but persistent shortfalls--those lasting days, weeks, or months--can cause economic disruption and danger to human life in our technology-rich societies. This...

This paper uses “centrality” metrics to reflect the changing structure of Global Value Chains (GVCs), contrasting central hubs and peripheral countries and sectors, and examine how these changes impact firm productivity. Using cross-country firm-level data from ORBIS, the paper finds that...

Reducing food losses and food waste is attracting growing public attention at the international, regional, and national levels, and is widely acknowledged to contribute to abating interlinked sustainability challenges such as food security, climate change, and water shortage. However, the...

We propose a new method to analyse the changing skills structure of employment in countries based on the input-output structure of the world economy. Demand for jobs, characterized by skill type and industry of employment, is driven by changes in technology, trade and consumption. Using...