Boston University Global Development Policy Center

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The @WorldBankGroup predicts that China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) will increase global real income by 0.7% by 2030.

A new study by GDP Center Senior Academic Researcher @ywang2005b + co-authors Xiaolin Wang and Yuan Chang measures the relationship between BRI participation and regional economic development, focusing on Asia—a region with high concentration of developing economies which can offer a rich lens to BRI's impact.

The authors find that BRI participation in Asia is associated with a significant increase in local economic activity, and China's outward infrastructure investment has been a key driver of the effect.

Read more: bit.ly/4A7Ixdj

#BRI #BeltAndRoad #InfrastructureDevelopment #China #Asia

Global imbalances are back, and the conventional diagnosis may be wrong.

Conventional analysis by the International Monetary Fund, G7 + OECD traces the imbalances to domestic saving–investment gaps, pointing to "excess saving in China and the EU, and too little saving in the United States."

In a new working paper, GDP Center Non-Resident Senior Fellow @YanLian31677392 + Center Director @KevinPGallagher argue that the root cause of the imbalances is in fact the financial imbalances generated by the international monetary and financial system (IMFS) itself. Dollar dominance and the lack of a credible global lender of last resort push countries to self-insure.

For this month's T20 Summit in New York, the authors contribute to a policy brief ahead of the December G20 Leaders' Summit. They present two priorities for G20 discussions on imbalances:

📍 Strengthening the global financial safety net (GFSN)
📍 Accelerating multilateral development bank (MDB) reform

The goal is to make these systems "not just bigger, but better."

📄 Read the working paper: gdpcenter.org/3UYqFCV
📄 Read the T20 policy brief: gdpcenter.org/47VEKUA

#G20 #IMF #OECD #T20 #GFSN #GlobalImbalances

The Think 20 (T20) is an engagement group of the #G20 convening think tanks and research centers to provide evidence-based research to support policymaker decisions in the G20.

A new T20 policy note coauthored by @KevinPGallagher calls for maximizing complementarities between multilateral development banks and national development banks to support EMDEs in pursuing low-carbon, socially equitable and resilient growth paths.

Read more: bit.ly/4iKDN7H

@StimsonCenter @QuincyInst @BrookingsInst

New GDP Center study reveals findings that challenge a common assumption about infrastructure finance + deforestation.

Although previous studies show substantial overlap between Chinese-financed projects and environmentally sensitive areas, those results do not measure realized environmental change.

Using the GDP Center's China’s Overseas Development Finance (CODF) Database, the new paper shows no support of meaningful differences when comparing project-timed forest change between Chinese-financed and other infrastructure projects.

Simply, Chinese overseas infrastructure finance does not exacerbate forest loss.

Read more: bu.edu/gdp/2026/10/28…

#COP17Armenia #Biodiversity #Nature #China #CBDCOP17