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Student loans in the United States represent the second largest type of household debt after home mortgages and were not only impervious to the 2009 recession, but are steadily rising along with total US household debt. As of the third quarter of 2018, student debt outstanding expanded by 2.6 percent, reaching a peak of $1.44 trillion, which is higher than total US debt on auto loans and credit cards. Total student loan debt has more than doubled since 2009 and grown six-fold over the last 15...

The US shale production boom and recovery of global oil prices following the global financial crisis of 2007-2008 created an attractive environment for new LNG projects. But continued investment and the trade routes that emerge from contracts between producers and consumers are subject to change, as we are witnessing now in the context of the increasingly acrimonious trade dynamic between the United States and China. In August, China floated a 25 percent tariff on LNG imports from the...

What started on November 17 as a revolt against rising fuel taxes in France has now lasted six consecutive weekends and evolved into a full-blown rejection of the socioeconomic policies of French President Emmanuel Macron. Protestors targeting of stagnant wages, rising prices and taxes, high unemployment in rural areas, pension security, government spending on bureaucrats, university entry requirements, and other issues has yielded some concessions—such as a minimum wage increase—yet protestors...

Take a look back through 2018 with the most popular Viz of the Day's from our team at Knoema. Revisit past look backs at the most popular Viz of the Days of 2017 and 2016.

Brent crude oil prices will average $72.8 per barrel in 2018 and to $73.7 per barrel in 2019, according to the most recent forecast from the US Energy Information Administration's monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook (EIA). This reflects an upward revision of $9.5/barrel to the EIA forecast for 2018 compared to last month's Outlook. The OECD Economic Outlook as of May 2018 was less bullish, pegging the real price of a barrel of Brent oil— i.e. price adjusted for inflation—at $69.4/barrel in...

Global oil prices have fallen by more than 30 percent since the summer of 2014, affecting oil producers and consumers alike. This dashboard presents oil price dynamics and the breakeven oil prices—minimum oil price to cover general government expenditures—over the past decade as well as a snapshot of the marginal cost of oil production by country in 2014. A world oil price in the range of $55 to $60 per barrel is less than the cost of Russian Arctic oil production, European and Brazilian...

Millenials have overtaken Babyboomers by nearly 4 million to become the largest generation in the United States. With a current population of around 79 million, the Millenial generation is expected to grow to 81 million over the next 20 years because of migration, according to the US Census Bureau's latest estimates. The boundaries that define generations are not universally agreed, and yet these boundaries carry important implications in business and government. The size, financial security,...

Ecuador has the world's highest share of nascent entrepreneurs per capita at about 30 percent of the population. This measure is known as total early-stage entrepreneurial activity (TEA). But, does this mean that Ecuador is more entrepreneurial than the United States, which has a TEA of only 14 percent? The answer depends on how we define “entrepreneur”. One key global economic growth driver is the ability of an entrepreneur to bring a concept to market, adding to national income, providing...

Today Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 27,339 retail locations as of the first quarter of 2018, followed distantly by such coffee shop chains as Dunkin Donuts with about 10,000 restaurants, Tim Hortons with 4,300 outlets, and Costa Coffee with nearly 1,700 stores worldwide. Starbucks was founded in 1971 in Seattle, Washington, and incorporated on November 4, 1985 to become the publicly traded Starbucks Corporation. Based on the company's positive, sustained...

The household debt balance in the United States reached a new all-time high of $13.3 trillion in the second quarter of 2018, according to the latest report from the Center for Microeconomic Data of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. US household debt has risen continuously since 2013, now constituting 65 percent of US GDP and exceeding the 2008 pre-crisis level by nearly $475 billion. US household debt is indisputably large in absolute terms, now exceeding the GDP China, the world's...

Since India was under British rule, the rupee was pegged to the British pound. From 1927 to 1966, 13 rupees = 1 pound. The peg was maintained until 1966 when the rupee was devalued and pegged to the U.S. dollar at a rate of 7.5 rupees = 1 dollar. This peg lasted until the U.S. dollar was devalued in 1971.

While mainstream media outlets globally may be focused on the relationship between climate change and extreme weather, crop performance, and infrastructure resilience, economists and business strategists alike are turning toward greener measures and outlooks of economic performance. The 2018 Global Green Economy Index (GGEI) by Dual Citizen LLC is one of several initiatives—others include the Green Growth Knowledge Platform and the UN Partnership for Action on Green Economy—working to provide...

Personal safety, as a basic human need, is encapsulated globally in national legislation and international accords, all with the aim of maintaining public order and safety. While definitions of law and order may vary by country—and with it the tasks assigned to security forces—the source of funding is nearly universally taxpayers. Every taxpayer thereby has the right to know whether these public expenditures are effective. In today’s viz we explore the efficiency of public safety expenditures...

In this dashboard, we integrate the most recent medium and long-term forecasts of key economic indicators for G20 countries from major international organizations, namely, the World Bank, IMF, United Nations, OECD, European Commission and the Economist Intelligence Unit. The data presented cover projections of real GDP growth, characterizing each country's output of final goods and services; consumer price inflation, as a measure of price level movements; unemployment rate, or percent of those...

One could argue that in a world subject to the inevitability of business cycles, the United States is overdue for a recession. During the 60 year period from 1950 to 2010, the US economy experienced 10 recessions, averaging one recession every six years. In contrast, the longest period of uninterrupted economic growth was just shy of 10 years. The US is now in the midst of nine years of economic growth with the last "Great Recession" a fading memory for some. Will 2019 bring recession to the...

Since the 1950s, the BP Statistical Review of World Energy has delivered objective and globally consistent data on world energy markets. The publication has become a widely respected and authoritative publication in the field of energy economics, relied on by media outlets, academia, world governments, and energy companies alike. BP publishes a new edition each June and typically conducts a road show to launch the report in the months preceding the official release. The 2016 edition...

Along with its cultural, leisure and recreational functions tourism contributes significantly (both directly and indirectly) to the world's economy and employment. It contributes to GDP even more than the automotive industry in all the regions throughout the globe: three times as much in Americas and two times as much in Europe, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council's 2017 research. In many countries tourism is the key source of jobs for their population. Thus, in Macau, one of...

Just as governments struggle to simultaneously address obesity and hunger, the world’s population continues to grow ... and shrink. The United Nations estimates that between 2015 and 2050 49 countries will experience population declines even as the total world population reaches 9.77 billion. Moreover, in all but two countries the ratio of old population to working-age population will increase by 2050, and an estimated 135 countries will experience fertility rates below replacement rates. While...

The concentration index of exports estimates a country’s reliance on a limited group of commodities as its primary source of foreign exchange income. Ranging from 0 (perfect diversification) to 1 (concentrated on a single product)*, a comparison of index scores to the contribution of natural resources to GDP worldwide shows that countries that are resource-rich tend to have less diversified export bases. Last year Iraq’s export concentration index reached 0.97, driven by its export...

In 2016, just 1 percent of the world's population owned more than 50 percent of the world's wealth. According to the data from the Credit Suisse Research Institute, inequlity of world wealth continues to grow every year. The Institute's assessment is based on a global analysis of national wealth—defined as the value of the financial assets plus real estate (housing) owned by the households, less their debts—and use of the Gini Index, a traditional measure of income distribution and, thereby,...

Australia is running a continuous and growing deficit in total oil stocks, defying the International Energy Agency's (IEA) mandate on members to maintain 90-days of coverage and perpetuating the country’s vulnerability to swings in global oil markets. Whether global supply imbalances arise from geopolitical discord, OPEC-sanctioned supply adjustments, or other market balance factors, the fact that Australia maintains no strategic reserve and has less than a 50 day supply of oil bodes poorly for...

ETH Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, claimed the top spot in the 2016-2017 Times Higher Education World University Ranking of computer science institutions based on its strong performance across all three pillars of the overall score. In teaching alone, the university gained three positions since last year’s ranking. The university is now the only institution from outside the US and the UK to emerge among the top 10 in the overall world university ranking and the top 5 in one...

In early September, the world learned that the personal data of 143 million Americans, or about half the US population, was compromised by an free-roaming, multi-month penetration of Equifax. As one of three major US consumer credit reporting agencies, the historic breach and suspicious trading of shares by Equifax executives shortly after the breach was discovered moved the US Senate banking committee to convene a panel to question the former Equifax Chair and CEO Richard Smith. With the...

The US Federal Debt (also referred to as The Public Debt or The Government Debt) is the amount owed by the federal government of the United States at any time in the past and not yet repaid. America has the largest debt burden in the world, which is estimated to be $18,472 billion by the end of 2015. Generally, there are two components of gross federal debt: debt held by the public and Ddbt held by government accounts. In 2007 the share of US federal debt held by the public was 56% only,...

Approximately one third of all victims - about 77,000 people - were claimed in the war in Syria alone during the period. An additional 40,000 casualties are attributable to a conflict minimally discussed by Western media - the civil war that erupted in December 2013 in South Sudan, the world's youngest country. The war in Ukraine, which began in 2014, had already taken at least 4,843 lives. Some ongoing conflicts last for decades. The combined death toll of the conflicts in the Democratic...

While in some ways technology has changed so much about the world today, it has not been able to erase the vulnerability of diverse populations globally to pandemics, outbreaks, and epidemics that costs lives and undercuts economic growth. In 2016, 1,436 people died due to epidemics, and the global economy lost an estimated $562 billion, which is roughly equivalent to 1.3 percent of global income. This places epidemics on par with some major natural disasters in terms of economic cost.In the...

Famous intellects and innovators including the likes of Benjamin Franklin and Nicola Tesla are known not only for their contributions to the world but for doing so on very few hours of sleep per night. We may like to think we could all achieve similar success if we slept less and worked more yet the reality of the human mind and body suggests that insufficient sleep has adverse and far-reaching consequences on our health and well-being and, ultimately, the global economy. The findings of a...

Global intelligence on the future of the world in the palm of your hand Description: The Center for Future Studies NEF of the Catholic University of Sao Paulo (PUC-SP), Brazilian Node of the Milennium Project, will be presenting the SOF 2015-2016. The Millennium Project connects futurists around the world to improve global foresight. It is now an independent non-profit global participatory think tank of futurists, scholars, business planners, and policy makers who work for international...

In order for the countries to perform sustainable development over times in all spheres of people's lives without imbalances adequate long-term strategic plans for the future are necessary to be elaborated. Development strategies will be of true benefit only in case if they are based on robust and reliable statistical tools, allowing to conduct comparative analysis of country's performance in all key fields of human being and over time. As of today, it is known lots of such tools most of which...

HUMAN DEVELOPEMENT INDEX (HDI) - is a composite index which includes health, education, income, livelihood security and other indicators. In other words, HDI is an indicator showig how successfull are achievenemts in three main fields of human development: healthy life, knowledge and decent standard of living. The chief aim of HDI is to provide nations with comprehensive measure of environment they provide for their people in terms of opportunites for personal fulfilment. The higher the HDI the...

Bitcoin is one of the world's most popular digital currencies, meaning that it is exclusively created and held electronically. But, what do we actually know about digital currencies and the potential of these currencies to replace conventional money? Like conventional money, the major function of a digital currency is to serve as a means of payment, whether that is in exchange for goods or real currency, such as dollars and euros. In addition, similar to how a normal currency's exchange rate...

Researchers from the Vienna-based Institute for Comparative Survey Research surveyed 86,000 people from 60 countries worldwide during the period from 2010 to 2014 to gain insight into the relative importance of a select set of values. These values were: family, friends, leisure time, politics, religion, and work. Participants of the World Value Survey (WVS) were asked to define the importance of each value, with ranking options of very important, rather important, not very important and not...

In 2016, Germany, Thailand, and Hong Kong were the top destinations for international travelers while China and the United States accounted for roughly one-third of total tourism expenditures worldwide, according to the World Tourism Organization. But, as people typically visit specific cities within a country, and not the entire country, it is far more interesting to examine city-level tourism statistics. The Global Destination Cities Index, which includes city-level data on the number of...

Electric cars constitute less than 0.1 percent of the vehicle market today, but market and regulatory forces all but ensure electric vehicles will be the future of the auto industry. According to the 2016 Global Electric Vehicle Outlook from the International Energy Agency, the global electric car stock has grown rapidly since 2010, from about 2,000 cars in 2005 to nearly 1.3 million in 2015. The boom in the electric car industry is usually attributed to three factors: The increasing recovery...

Millennials are marked for their affinity with media and digital technologies and the consequent positive effect on policy and economy of cities they live in. The migration of individuals of this generation is thus of high interest to everyone from city planners and real estate agents to corporations with long supply chains to recalibrate to the demands of evolving city demographics. Millennials—those aged 17-37 years, i.e. born between the early 1980s to early 2000s—constitute roughly...

On March 8, 2018, US president Donald Trump issued two proclamations to adjust US imports of aluminum and steel from all countries except Canada and Mexico, key regional allies and trade partners. President Trump asserted that a 25 percent tariff on steel “articles” and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum articles are necessary for the US to develop its domestic steel and aluminum industries and to protect and create jobs. The US is the world's largest importer of the steel and aluminum articles...

Bitcoins, ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies, commonly known as "digital gold", are gaining exposure globally through various media outlets even though very few countries officially recognize cryptocurrency as legal currency. Official national-level regulatory positions relative to cryptocurrency may be separated into three main groups: totally against, legalized, and uncertain. The most interesting situation is uncertain because of the market basis at stake if governments turn away from...

The decrease in the national crime rate in the US during the past two decades was insufficient to offset the cost to US taxpayers to manage prisons because of the simultaneous increase in the rate of incarceration during the period. Between 1991 and 2013, the national crime rate fell from 1,311 to 689 offenses per 100,000 people. In absolute terms, 8.5 million fewer crimes were committed in 2013 compared to 1991. While the crime rate decreased, the number of state inmates grew by 200 percent...

After the US Government went into a shutdown on 1st october 2013, and only essential services functioned for 2 weeks, the US Congress voted on the night of 16th October 2013, to avert a debt defalut and allow the government to work again. The US financial year ends at midnight on September 30. Under US law, a new bill to approve funding for the next financial year must be approved by the House of Representatives, the Senate and the president before the financial year ends. This has not...

On April, International Monetary Fund released the new edition of its World Economic Outlook (WEO). According to the updated estimates, global economic growth in 2018 will grow to 3.94 percent from 3.76 percent in 2017. This is a upward revision relative to the previous October's estimate in which world's GDP growth was expected to rise this year. Released twice a year, in October 2017 and April 2018, WEO contains projections of key economic and financial indicators such as GDP, inflation,...

Technology is ever evolving and new cyber threats continue to be devised. In embracing technology progress, cybersecurity must form an integral and indivisible part of the process. Unfortunately, cybersecurity is not yet at the core of many national and industrial technology strategies. Countries need to be aware of their current capability level in cybersecurity and at the same time identify areas where cybersecurity needs to be enhanced. The Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) is a measure of...

The Financial Secrecy Index (FSI) was launched in November 2015 to provide a ranking of jurisdictions according to their secrecy and the scale of their offshore financial activities. Designed to be politically neutral, the focus of the tool is to expand our understanding of global financial secrecy, tax havens or secrecy jurisdictions, and illicit financial flows or capital flight. The FSI uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative data to create a single measure of each jurisdiction’s...

The Government of Haiti on July 6 imposed price hikes for a variety of fuels, sparking violent protests across the country that cost lives, destroyed property, shut down air traffic, and even caused embassies, business, schools, and other entities to restrict transit and activity in the country. The government increased gasoline prices by 38 percent, kerosene by 51 percent, and diesel by 47 percent. Currently, gasoline costs $0.88 per liter while diesel costs $0.7 per liter, according to...

Consistent with traditional economic theory, the number of retailers per million compared to national inflation rates reveals that in markets with greater market competition, prices tend to rise more slowly. Retailers in the food and the sport and leisure sectors, however, work with unique market dynamics that diverge from this relationship and require careful branding and market positioning to succeed. Malta, Iceland, and Luxembourg have the highest number of retail chains per million and...

The 2013 report includes a state-by-state breakdown of types and calibers of firearms recovered and traced, source states, criminal offenses associated with the crime guns, time-to-crime, and age ranges of crime gun possessors at the time of recovery. Key findings of this year’s report include pistols as the most common firearm type recovered and traced, 9 mm as the top caliber recovered and traced, and 11.08 years as the average time-to-crime for crime guns recovered and traced in...

According to the latest BP Statistical Review of World Energy, total global reserves, by fossil fuel, are now: Coal - 1,139 billion tonnes Natural Gas - 187 trillion cubic meters Crude Oil - 1,707 billion barrels While these volumes may seem large at a glance, at today's level of extraction and production rates, BP's estimated proved reserves*, by fossil fuel, would be exhausted as follows: Coal - year 2169 Natural Gas - year 2068 Crude Oil - year 2066 BP dutifully acknowledges the...

The Big Mac Index invented by The Economist is an informal way of measuring the purchasing power parity (PPP) between two currencies. Calculation of PPPs is based on the assumption that the dollar cost for a Big Mac in a particular country would be the same as in the United States. The indicator is chosen by The Economist magazine, as a measure of PPP, is based on the fact that the ingredients used in the preparation of Big Mac are the same over the globe, and hence variation in dollar cost in...

People in Honduras, Salvador, Jamaica, Venezuela, and Guatemala have the highest probability to be shot and killed. A comparison between the rate of homicide by firearms and socio-economic indicators shows a correlation between high rates of income inequality and higher rates of homicide by firearms. Countries with GINI coefficients exceeding 0.45 are at higher risk of homicide by firearm.

Since 2003 until now Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) conciders about 1000 universities all over the world in ordet to build ranking of 500 ones with the highest performance in academic and research fields. Its methodology implies assessing institutions by 6 indicators including alumni (Score on Alumni) and staff (Score on Award) winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, highly cited researchers (Score on HiCi), papers published in Nature and Science (Score on N&S), papers...

Times Higher Education recognized the University of Oxford as the world's top university of 2017, snatching the top spot away from the California Institute of Technology, which had held the top rank since 2012 when it displaced Harvard University. This is the first year in the history of this ranking that a university from the UK has held the top spot. The World University Ranking by the Times Higher Education assesses research-intensive universities of different countries around the world...