European equities faced broad-based declines on Friday, with both the STOXX 50 and STOXX 600 falling 0.5% amid investor concerns over disappointing corporate earnings and the lack of clarity on a potential US–EU trade agreement.
The United Kingdom’s consumer sentiment weakened in July 2025 as households began bracing for potentially adverse fiscal conditions. According to the GfK Consumer Confidence Index, sentiment edged down to -19 from -18 in June, interrupting a six-month upward trend and indicating a renewed sense of caution.
Initial jobless claims in the United States fell to 217,000 in the week ending July 19, 2025, marking a decline of 4,000 from the previous week and defying market expectations, which had forecast a rise to 227,000.
India’s manufacturing sector surged forward in July 2025, with the HSBC India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) climbing to 59.2, up from 58.4.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose above $66 per barrel on Friday, continuing their upward momentum for a second consecutive session amid growing optimism surrounding global trade negotiations and renewed concerns about supply-side disruptions.
In May 2025, a data error in the UK’s inflation release offered a rare case to study how markets respond to incorrect economic news and its later correction. On 21 May 2025, the ONS announced that consumer price index (CPI) inflation had jumped to 3.5% in April, up sharply from 2.6% in March. This headline figure overshot market expectations (consensus ~3.3%) and even the Bank of England’s forecast (~3.4%), signaling a surprise uptick in price pressures.
The United Kingdom’s official statistical system was shaken by revelations that critical economic data had been calculated using incorrect inputs, leading to inaccuracies in key indicators. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) – the UK’s national statistical agency – uncovered a methodological error in the price data used for GDP calculations, raising concerns that GDP growth figures for recent years were off-target.
Global trade liberalization has been a driving force in shaping economic outcomes over the past decade. Between 2017 and 2025, countries experienced significant changes in trade policy –making this period ideal for studying the impact of liberalization. In this analysis, we construct a comprehensive country-level panel dataset to examine how reducing trade barriers affects trade flows, GDP growth, and employment.
This framework outlines a comprehensive approach to analyzing global trade liberalization from 2017 to the present. It covers the key datasets needed (with sources), suitable econometric models, data preparation steps, and solutions for missing data and comparability issues.
The period from 2017 to 2024 has been tumultuous for global trade. After decades of steady liberalization, a wave of protectionism and trade tensions emerged, epitomized by tariff wars and rising barriers. At the same time, many countries pushed forward with new trade agreements and reforms to keep markets open.
AI adoption is not stalling; it is bifurcating. Capital and compute are scaling rapidly, while measurable enterprise value and productivity gains lag. Hyperscaler capex and GPU revenues confirm the installation phase is in full flight. Firm surveys show usage doubling, yet the share reporting material EBIT impact is stuck. Our employment-weighted sector DiD finds no statistically significant post-2022 productivity lift in high-exposure industries. Monetisation should inflect when three conditions hold: inference costs fall by another order of magnitude, evaluation and guardrail stacks standardise, and firms rebuild workflows so AI transforms processes rather than isolated tasks. Until then, value will stay concentrated with infrastructure providers and the few firms that have already re-engineered for AI. Patience is warranted; discipline on governance, cost curves and ROI thresholds is essential.
The concept of plant intelligence first captured my interest through Charles Darwin’s pioneering research on plant behavior. In the late 19th century, Darwin—alongside his son Francis—authored “The Power of Movement in Plants” (1880), a groundbreaking work that proposed plants are far more dynamic and purposeful than previously thought.
South Asians have been observed to have a higher susceptibility to cardiometabolic diseases since the 1950s, with early research in Singapore identifying elevated coronary heart disease mortality rates in this group. The trend gained more attention in the 1980s–1990s, particularly with increased South Asian migration to Western countries, prompting ethnicity-based health studies to improve diagnosis and care. Recent data highlights that South Asians are 4–5 times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes and face a 1.7-fold greater risk of coronary heart disease compared to White populations in the US and UK.
