Lara Merling is a New York-based macro-economist. Her research focuses on the international financial architecture and how it can better serve all countries seeking to finance their climate and development goals. Lara is currently a fellow at the Climate and Community Institute and the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

January 31, 2025

Analysis

Polycrisis 2025

Diplomacy, finance, and extraction in the year ahead

The United States will be a source of chaos and volatility for the next several years. The first month of 2025 has set the scene. Events so far have included imperial gangsterism against both a poor Latin American country (Colombia)…

December 18, 2024

Analysis

America First?

Escalation and reverberations in the trade war

The reelection of Donald Trump to the presidency has sent shockwaves around the world. And just hours after results came in, the ruling three-party German coalition government, which had been teetering for months, collapsed. The survival of dominant political coalitions in…

October 22, 2024

Analysis

“Greenwashing” Structural Adjustment

Should the IMF lead the global energy transition?

In a global financial system underpinned by the US dollar, the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes can push much of the global South to the brink of a full-blown debt crisis. The exposure of Southern countries to such external risks,…

July 7, 2022

Interviews

The IMF & the Legacy of Bretton Woods

Global South debt crises and the evolution of the international monetary system

Fifty years on from the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, the role of the international monetary system and international financial institutions in managing the global economy are in question.