The global economy entered the second half of 2026 with a stronger surface appearance than many risk managers might have expected. Growth remained positive across major regions despite…

There are anecdotes that characterize a thinker more precisely than many a ceremonial speech. In Kenneth Arrow's case, it is the story from his time as a weather officer in the U.S. Army Air…

Current account balances were long regarded as a technical outcome of the international division of labor. This view has become too narrow. China can leverage its position in industrial supply…

The most powerful AI models can no longer merely explain program code or flag individual security vulnerabilities. They are increasingly capable of developing exploits, linking multiple attack…

There are moments in the history of economics when an entire field of research emerges from an almost casual remark. In the case of Harry Max Markowitz, the story does not begin on the stock…

Since the Great Financial Crisis, Basel III has been the central regulatory response to the question of how banks can be made more resilient to losses and systemic shocks. The reform package did…

Cyber risk has moved from the margins of operational risk management to the centre of economic and financial stability debates. In a deeply digitalised economy, cyber incidents no longer affect…

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) does not tell a simple crisis story in its Annual Economic Report 2026. The report opens with a seemingly reassuring observation: despite major tariff…

There are moments when a thinker’s entire worldview becomes apparent in just a few minutes. There are moments when a thinker’s entire worldview becomes apparent in just a few minutes. One such…

In the history of probability theory, there are few statements that sound as simple and yet pack as much of a punch as this one: "Probability does not exist." You hear it and almost inevitably…

London, on a cold evening in the early decades of the 18th century. In a coffeehouse, amid clouds of tobacco smoke, newspapers, and the restless murmur of merchants and scholars, a gaunt man with…

In 'The Dark Pattern', Guido Palazzo and Ulrich Hoffrage examine the hidden dynamics of corporate scandals. The book does not start with the convenient explanation that scandals are primarily the…

There are certain historical scenes that seem almost too good to be true – and yet, precisely for that reason, they reveal something essential about an era. One such scene takes place in…

A new study on data poisoning in large language models suggests that even a small absolute number of manipulated documents can be enough to embed covert malfeasance in models. For companies that…

An actual article by Farhad Khakzad argues that the Strait of Hormuz is not merely a narrow maritime route for oil shipments, but a strategic fault line where energy security, military power,…

A cool evening in Basel, at the end of the 17th century. In a study, Jakob Bernoulli sits hunched over columns of numbers. Before him lie records of coin tosses – hundreds, perhaps thousands of…

Commerzbank is not a takeover target today because it is too strong. It is one because, despite respectable metrics, it has for too long been managed strategically below its potential. UniCredit…

Agentic AI shifts the risk profile of AI systems: "Text can be wrong" becomes "Text can trigger actions." Once agents use tools and publicly use each other as a source of context, new attack…