This week, Washington DC will host two gatherings that should be important in their own right, and yet are unlikely to be: one is the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB), which brings into town thousands of top finance and central banking officials as well as private sector delegates from the financial sector and civil society; the other is the peace negotiations between Israel and Lebanon. The former is traditionally an opportunity to take stock and send a combination of reassuring messages to markets and stern admonitions to policymakers. The latter could have been history-making just for taking place. Yet both are certain to be overshadowed by developments in the Persian Gulf and US-Iran talks. Unable to pin down the near-term outlook, delegates are likely to set their sight, more than usual, on longer-fused developments: inexorably rising public debt burdens, global economic governance in the post US-centric age, AI’s economic and geopolitical impacts,and the implications of the rise of private markets and digital finance. Here are five key questions I will seek to get greater clarity on. [...]
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