Research

Between 1981 and 2020 the 10-year Treasury yield fell from about 15.8% to about 0.5%. Is the post-pandemic rise to about 5% a cyclical normalisation or the start of a secular repricing of the global cost of capital? This paper treats the thesis as a hypothesis and tests each link of the chain from globalisation reversal through investment demand, r*, inflation risk and term premia to fiscal supply and foreign demand. The term premium has clearly returned (ACM 0.89%, Kim–Wright 1.07%, San Francisco Fed 1.49%), fiscal supply is heavy and the marginal Japanese bid is weakening, but r* estimates (about 1% on the New York Fed model) are low and contested, expectations are anchored, and ageing, debt and technology could pull yields down. The floor matters more than the peak: a floor of 3.5–4.5%, against 1–2% in the 2010s, would matter even if yields never reach 7–8%. The most probable reading is a higher and more volatile range, not a straight-line bear market.

16 October 2026

What could happen to US 10-, 20- and 30-year Treasury yields if the Fed tightened by 525bp (3.75% to 9.00%) and the ECB by 450bp (from its May 2026 refinancing rate of 2.15% to 6.65%) at the same time? This stress test is not a forecast. The reference is the official Treasury par curve of 29 May 2026: 4.45%, 4.98% and 4.99%. A 525bp rise in the funds rate does not mechanically raise long yields by 525bp; they price the expected policy path, inflation, the term premium and fiscal and supply effects. The risk is duration, not default. Our central stress estimate (Scenario B) is about 8.25% at 10 years and 8.75% at 20 and 30 years (about +380bp), against working estimates of 8.00%, 8.75% and 9.00%; Scenario A points to about 7% and Scenario C, an extreme tail, to about 10%. The paper completes our sovereign-duration series with the French OAT and Italian BTP stress tests.

12 October 2026

This stress test asks what could happen to French 10-, 20- and 30-year OAT yields if the ECB tightened by 450bp from its May 2026 refinancing rate of 2.15% (to 6.65%) and the Fed by 525bp from 3.75% (to 9.00%) at the same time. It is a stress scenario, not a forecast. A long OAT yield is not a policy rate plus a spread: it combines expected short rates, inflation compensation, a term premium, global duration pricing and a French sovereign premium. France starts from debt of 119.0% of GDP, a deficit near 5%, growth near 0.6% and a negative external position. From May reference yields of about 3.65%, 4.2% and 4.5%, the central stress case (B) is about 7.75% at 10 years, 8.25% at 20 years and 8.75% at 30 years, with wide ranges and an extreme tail (C) near 8–10% at 10 years. The longer the maturity, the more the market prices the credibility of the long-term fiscal regime.

11 October 2026

What could happen to Italian 10-, 20- and 30-year BTP yields if the ECB tightened by 450bp from its May 2026 refinancing rate of 2.15% (to 6.65%) and the Fed by 525bp from 3.75% (to 9.00%) at the same time? This stress test is not a forecast. BTP yields are measured from a consistent 29 May 2026 reference of about 3.67%, 4.2% and 4.45%. A BTP yield combines the euro-area risk-free rate, global duration, a term premium and an Italian sovereign premium, so it does not rise 450bp mechanically. Italy has debt near 137% of GDP and weak growth but also a primary surplus, a current-account surplus and a positive net investment position. Our central stress estimate (Scenario B) is about 7.5%, 8.25% and 8.5%, below the 7.75%, 8.75% and 9.25% of the working estimates; the extreme tail (C) is a sovereign–bank feedback loop with the 10-year at 7.75–9.75%.

11 October 2026

An energy shock does not necessarily remain an energy shock. Under certain conditions it can become a macro-financial shock, then a sovereign and currency shock, then a geoeconomic shock and, in the extreme tail, a geopolitical one. This paper maps the transmission from energy to inflation, monetary restriction, bond markets, asset prices, banks, recession, fiscal policy, protectionism and geopolitics, and shows that the outcome is not predetermined. Three scenarios are possible: stabilisation, financial and geoeconomic fragmentation, and, as an extreme tail risk rather than a forecast, systemic breakdown. The most important risk is the interaction between shocks, and the price of capital is the variable connecting energy security, monetary policy, financial stability, industrial policy and geopolitics.

9 October 2026

The key investment issue is not simply the next central-bank rate decision. If inflation uncertainty becomes persistent, markets may move to a different pricing regime in which duration, term premia and the broader price of capital are structurally repriced. Policy rates are 2.50% (ECB), 3.75–4.00% (Fed) and 1.25% (BoJ), yet the 10-year Treasury yield is 5.28%, the 30-year JGB was above 4% in September and the OAT is near 4.95%. Longer-term inflation expectations remain close to 2% among professionals, and the BIS attributes the rise in term premia to fiscal pressure more than inflation fears: a higher price for duration, not yet de-anchoring. The distribution of inflation outcomes, not just its central case, drives prices, and a higher term premium reprices bonds, equities, credit, real assets and currencies together. The test is which macro assumptions are embedded in prices.

6 October 2026

Europe’s energy transition is also a macroeconomic transformation involving energy security, inflation, fiscal capacity, the external balance and the cost of capital. The 2026 Hormuz disruption, the second major energy shock in four years, tests it before it is complete. The ECB estimates additional green investment needs of 2.7–3.7% of EU GDP a year to 2030, while defence spending rises, ECB staff see the euro-area deficit at 3.7% of GDP in 2027 and Bund and OAT yields are 3.4–3.6% and 4.94–4.95%. The relevant variable is not the price of energy alone but the combined price of energy and the capital required to build the next energy system. The transition is neither inherently inflationary nor disinflationary: its effect depends on technology, sequencing, productivity, financing and geopolitics.

5 October 2026

A 9% federal funds rate is not a forecast. It is derived mechanically from the 525bp of the 2022–23 Fed cycle (8.75–9.00% from the 3.50–3.75% range that prevailed until September, 9.00–9.25% from today’s 3.75–4.00%) and used as a boundary condition to ask what regime could make such tightening conceivable. The answer is not an inflation shock alone but a change in the marginal cost of financing the United States: weaker marginal foreign demand for US assets, large fiscal and external deficits, a higher term premium and a weaker dollar importing inflation. Current evidence leans against it (dollar index up about 4% in a year, solid growth, 10-year breakeven 2.36%), but some preconditions are visible. The marginal foreign buyer matters more than the stock of foreign-owned assets, and the thesis is the regime change, not the number.

5 October 2026

The ECB has raised its deposit rate twice in 2026, to 2.50%, as an energy shock lifted euro-area inflation to 3.8% in September. Yet markets price only about a one-in-five chance of a hike on 29 October, because the long end is tightening on the ECB’s behalf: the 10-year OAT is near 5%, the OAT–Bund spread is the widest since 2012 and the 10-year Treasury yields about 5.3%. We argue that the third leg of the ECB’s own framework — transmission — has become the binding constraint. Long yields deliver tightening through term and sovereign risk premia, not expected policy rates, so the substitution is partial, uneven across member states and silent on wage-setting. Our central case is a hold on 29 October, with December the decision point and any hike conditioned on second-round evidence rather than on energy prices alone.

4 October 2026

A 6.5–7.0% ECB deposit rate is not a forecast. It is the destination reached if the ECB had to repeat the full 450bp tightening of July 2022–September 2023 from either end of today’s policy base (2.00% before the shock, 2.50% now), used as a boundary condition to test how far its reaction function could stretch if a prolonged energy shock became embedded in domestic inflation. Under a Taylor-type rule the range requires sustained underlying inflation of roughly 4.5–5%, about double today’s core, and even the ECB staff’s severe scenario falls well short of that. The decisive issue is not the energy shock but whether it propagates through services, wages, expectations and price-setting. Markets and bank balance sheets would react long before policy rates approached the range, so the ECB could be financially constrained even if the inflation arithmetic called for more.

4 October 2026

The BoJ raised its policy rate 25bp to 1.25% on September 18, 2026 -- the highest since April 1995 -- in a 7-2 vote, only three months after its prior hike versus roughly six months between earlier steps, a genuine acceleration. Board member Takata called 2026 a 'regime change.' We test this against the evidence: the yen weakened and JGB yields fell on the decision itself -- a 'sell the fact' reaction consistent with gradual carry-trade compression, not a disorderly unwind. The BoJ move came within two weeks of Fed and ECB hikes, meaning three of the world's most consequential central banks tightened nearly simultaneously in September 2026. We assess Japan's three-decade role as an unconditional source of cheap global funding as genuinely, structurally ending at the margin, without yet reaching the point of an abrupt reversal.

25 September 2026

The ECB raised its deposit facility rate twice in 2026 -- to 2.25% (11 June) and 2.50% (10 September) -- its first hikes since 2023, tied to a Middle East-driven energy shock. Staff projections show 2026 headline inflation at 3.0%, easing to ~2.5% (2027) and 2.1% (2028), with 2026 growth at 0.9%. Lagarde has pushed back publicly on an automatic tightening path ('interest rates do not move in lockstep with the price of energy'). We find the ECB retains genuine optionality: services inflation eased from 3.5% in May to 3.0% in August and wages show no material response yet, but the ECB's own wage tracker projects negotiated wage growth rising to 2.7% in H1 2027 -- the clearest indicator that would force further tightening if it materialises. We also examine why the ECB controls the short end of the curve but not the long end, where sovereign term premia, fiscal credibility and global capital flows increasingly dominate European borrowing costs.

23 September 2026

On September 16, 2026, the Fed raised its target range 25bp to 3.75%-4.00% -- its first hike since July 2023 -- as the US 10Y Treasury traded near 5.01%-5.02%, the highest since July 2007. We test whether the global monetary regime is transitioning from a policy-rate-dominated one toward one where the cost of capital, expressed through long-end yields and term premia, carries comparable weight. We independently verified the specific claims in the brief that occasioned this report (US 10Y >5%, Brent ~$108, ECB 2.50%, BoE 3.75%, BoJ pricing toward 1.25%) and found them accurate. We do not find the Fed or ECB have reached fiscal dominance in the strict sense, but the higher-yields/higher-deficit/higher-term-premium feedback loop is a live, evidenced risk. The BoJ's September 18 decision remains genuinely undecided as of publication and is explicitly flagged as a market expectation, not a fact.

16 September 2026

Five ECB economists argued in an August 17, 2026 ECB Blog post that US CAPE valuations are near their historical peak and a correction 'is likely,' with the euro area exposed despite its small tech sector. We use that post only as a starting point -- not reproducing its text or conclusions -- and independently test its framework against our own real-yield data and this programme's companion research. We find the rational-option-value-versus-speculative-excess distinction (Pastor & Veronesi 2009; Scheinkman 2014; Hong & Stein 2007) analytically sound, and identify the discount-rate channel as the critical, underexamined link: US 10Y real yields rose from 2.35% to 2.44% in a single week around the July 2026 FOMC decision. A correction driven by rising real yields would look mechanically different from one driven by monetization disappointment, and could occur even if AI's productivity promise is fully validated. We do not conclude AI equities are or aren't a bubble -- we conclude the question is under-specified without first distinguishing which mechanism is doing the work.

24 August 2026

Bloomberg reported (Aug 16, 2026) that roughly two-thirds of 32 tracked swap markets are priced for further tightening -- a statistic we could not independently verify and present explicitly as a Bloomberg estimate, not a fact. Testing the underlying hypothesis -- has the Fed stopped being the dominant driver of global yields -- against our own data and six weeks of companion research, we find sovereign 10Y yields have risen in near lockstep across Japan (+270-294bp since 2020), Germany (+344bp), France (+378bp) and the UK (+409-429bp), a correlation more consistent with a shared global term-premium dynamic than Fed-specific transmission. Yet the Fed, ECB, BoE and BoJ independently reached near-identical 'this is not 2022' judgements in 2026 -- evidence of continued substantive coordination. Our verdict: a combination of factors, with fiscal/term-premium dynamics now the largest single driver, converging with the base case across this programme's recent research.

21 August 2026

Hedge funds' gross US Treasury exposure reached $4.0tn by September 2025 ($2.4tn long, $1.6tn short), roughly double 2023 levels, with the cash-futures basis trade at ~$830bn -- about double its early-2020 peak (Federal Reserve Board, FEDS Notes, June 2026). We test whether this has structurally changed the Treasury market's systemic-risk profile using March 2020 and April 2025 as direct stress-test comparisons: a comparably sized shock in April 2025 produced materially less liquidity deterioration than March 2020 (a standard T-cost index rose ~5x vs ~20x), with the Fed's Standing Repo Facility -- established in direct response to 2020 -- the clearest evidenced explanation. Yet leverage has grown past its pre-pandemic peak even as resilience improved. We find a genuine, unresolved paradox: hedge fund intermediation likely lowers government borrowing costs and deepens liquidity in normal times, while remaining the mechanism both the Fed and ECB identify as the principal amplification channel in Treasury market stress.

18 August 2026

Does the traditional monetary policy framework remain adequate when inflation is increasingly supply-driven? Using the ECB as the central case study, alongside the Fed, BoE and BoJ, we find the framework tested but not broken: our own EA HICP data show two distinct supply shocks since 2022, with 2026's showing a much cleaner supply-side signature (narrow headline-core gap) than 2022's. All four central banks explicitly distinguished the 2026 shock from 2022 when choosing to hold rather than hike. What has genuinely changed is the financing constraint: our France-Japan comparison shows fiscal space to absorb shocks is not a fixed endowment but a function of political credibility -- France shows a measurable political-risk premium in its spread, Japan does not, despite carrying far higher debt.

14 August 2026

Freddie Mac's PMMS put the US 30-year fixed mortgage rate at 6.67% on August 13, 2026 -- up from 6.58% a year earlier -- despite the Fed not moving its policy rate once in 2026. UK 2-year fixed rates rose 17bp in a single month (Moneyfacts) despite the BoE also holding. This piece traces the full transmission chain from the Middle East-conflict energy shock through EA headline inflation, sovereign yields, and into mortgage rates and housing affordability in the US, UK and euro area, quantifying 'market-based monetary tightening' directly. We find the mechanism operating clearly in the US and UK but with a genuine pass-through lag in the euro area, where our own mortgage rate composite has actually eased even as market yields rose -- a forward risk we flag rather than resolve.

14 August 2026

Inspired by, but independent of, Biagio Bossone's 5 August 2026 OMFIF commentary questioning whether rate-led disinflation can handle recurring supply shocks, this paper tests a distinct hypothesis: monetary policy may be poorly suited to eliminating supply-side inflation directly, but monetary and fiscal credibility remain essential because supply shocks become persistent inflation through expectations, exchange rates, sovereign risk premia and portfolio reallocation. Our own data show the euro area experienced two distinct shocks (2022 and 2026), with the 2026 episode showing a much cleaner supply-side signature (narrow headline-core gap) than 2022. US producer prices have re-accelerated to 13.1% YoY by May 2026, an under-discussed leading indicator. The paper's strongest original evidence is a France-Japan comparison: both absorbed comparable global term-premium repricing, but only France -- with acute political fragmentation -- shows a measurable sovereign political-risk premium, direct support for the sovereign-credibility-channel hypothesis.

14 August 2026

This paper tests, rather than assumes, whether the global economy is undergoing a structural regime shift from Regime II (post-GFC monetary dominance, 2008-2019) toward a fiscally expansionary, monetarily restrictive, protectionist, energy-insecure, militarised Regime V (2025-). Using a five-regime historical framework and lucabindi.com's own data plus six companion pieces (on the Fed, BoE, global sovereign bonds, Fed communication, the Japan/yen intervention, and dollar dominance) as directly incorporated evidence, we find clear structural evidence on three dimensions -- sovereign term premia (rising 265-429bp across JP/DE/FR/GB since 2020), energy volatility (Brent +58% Jan-Jun 2026), and the terms (not architecture) of dollar centrality -- and more ambiguous evidence on protectionism and fiscal persistence. Inflation expectations remain anchored -- the strongest evidence against the most extreme reading. We assign our base case (managed structural inflation) roughly 45-50% probability, with three alternative scenarios, and flag five specific data gaps rather than fabricating data to fill them.

5 August 2026

The dollar's share of allocated global FX reserves fell from 62.2% (2019) to a trough of 56.4% (Q4-2025) before rebounding to 57.1% (Q1-2026) in our own data -- a genuine but gradual, well-under-1pp/year decline, not an accelerating exit. We use the July-August 2026 coordinated US-Japan yen intervention (examined in full in our companion Japan piece) as a case study: the US defended a foreign currency using Fed infrastructure explicitly to protect Treasury market functioning -- evidence of continued active dollar-system stewardship, not withdrawal. At the same time, a rising Treasury term premium (documented in our Fed communication-regime piece) and Japan's own newly-competitive JGB yields are genuine structural forces shifting the terms, if not yet the architecture, of dollar centrality. We find no evidence of imminent or accelerating displacement, and distinguish throughout between directly evidenced facts, academic literature, historical precedent, and our own judgement.

4 August 2026

On July 31-Aug 1, 2026, the US and Japan conducted their first coordinated yen-buying intervention since 1998, after the yen hit 163.73/USD -- a four-decade low -- on July 23. Our own data show the run-up: USD/JPY depreciated from 142.76 (Jun-2025) to 163.71 (Jul-24-2026), 14.7% in 13 months, confirmed broad-based by the yen NEER falling from 76.46 to 68.73. Over the same window, JGB 10Y yields rose from 1.42% to 2.65% and the BOJ balance sheet contracted 11% (Y717.5tn to Y639.6tn). Japan sold an estimated $58.97bn on July 30 alone; the NY Fed bought yen for Treasury, reportedly selling euros via Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. We find the intervention addresses a symptom -- disorderly depreciation -- not its cause: a genuine, continuing rate-differential gap between a gradually-normalizing BOJ and an already-higher global yield environment this programme has documented separately.

3 August 2026

Around the July 29, 2026 FOMC decision, our own data show a clean bear steepener: 3M yields -7bp, 2Y roughly flat, but 5Y/10Y/30Y +10bp/+14bp/+18bp -- over a meeting where the policy rate didn't move. Chair Warsh has explicitly framed reduced forward guidance as deliberate policy: 'market participants are learning to play the ball, not the referee.' We decompose the move: real yields (10Y +9bp) explain more than breakevens (+6-8bp, still within the 2.2-2.3% range), consistent with a term-premium story rather than de-anchoring inflation expectations. VIX spiked and quickly faded (18.2->20.7->17.1); credit spreads barely moved -- evidence of an orderly repricing, not a financial-stability event. We weigh three interpretations (communication regime change; shared global term-premium shock; idiosyncratic hawkish-dissent surprise) without forcing a single verdict, and distinguish throughout between directly evidenced facts, established academic findings, and our own reasoned judgement.

1 August 2026

The BoE's MPC voted 6-3 on July 30, 2026 to hold Bank Rate at 3.75% -- Greene, Mann and Pill dissented for an immediate hike to 4.00%. The real story is the trajectory: unanimous 9-0 in March (first dissent-free vote in 4.5 years), 8-1 in April, 7-2 in June, now 6-3 -- a clean four-meeting progression from unanimity to a three-way hawkish split, with the Bank's own Chief Economist now dissenting. Bailey explicitly pushed back on reading this as a prelude to a hike. The July MPR projects CPI peaking near 3.2% in Q4 2026 on an energy shock tied to the Middle East conflict. Our own data show gilt 10Y yields up ~50bp Feb-May 2026 (among the largest G7 moves), with the BoE's own April MPR estimating 53% of mortgage holders face higher payments on refixing.

31 July 2026

Japan's 10-year yield has risen from -0.07% (2020) to roughly 2.6-2.9% (mid-2026) as the BOJ ended yield curve control. But every major sovereign market has repriced similarly: Bunds -0.44%->3.0%, OATs -0.08%->3.7%, Gilts 0.6%->4.9%, US 30Y to 5.09% (highest since 2007). This piece uses lucabindi.com's own yield, debt-to-GDP, and fiscal-balance data across Japan, the US, Germany, France, the UK and Italy, alongside BOJ, IMF, Banque de France and rating-agency sources, to argue global sovereign bond markets have entered a structurally different regime: higher term premia, tighter supply-demand balance, and genuine sovereign risk differentiation. France -- not Japan -- is identified as the advanced world's clearest current weak link: three rating downgrades in a year, a 5.4-5.8% deficit, five PMs in two years, and an OAT-Bund spread near 80bp with an estimated 20-25bp political risk premium.

30 July 2026

The FOMC voted 9-3 on July 29, 2026 to hold the federal funds rate at 3.50%-3.75% -- but three regional presidents (Hammack, Kashkari, Logan) dissented for an immediate hike, the largest unified hawkish dissent of Warsh's chairmanship, and Warsh's own rhetoric ('no soft inflation target... not on this Committee's watch') was as forceful as any Fed chair's in a decade. Markets read the combination as talk without action: our own data show the 10-year Treasury closing at 4.67% (from 4.61%), the 30-year at 5.20% (highest since 2007), the S&P 500 down 1.5% to 7316.15, and the dollar falling roughly 0.3-0.5%. Post-decision pricing implied a 57% probability of a September hike, up from roughly one-in-three pre-meeting. This piece covers the full decision: the vote, the dissent, the press conference, market reaction across rates/FX/equities/credit, and the path ahead.

30 July 2026

Today, July 29, 2026, the FOMC concludes a genuine coin-flip meeting -- a hold priced at roughly 64%, a hike at 33-40%, the Fed's first possible hike since July 2023. The setup: June's SEP flipped the median 2026 dot from an implied cut (3.4%) to an implied hike (3.8%), split evenly across 18 participants (Warsh abstained). Since then, June CPI cooled on a brief Iran-conflict lull before oil surged ~20% again in July, reinjecting the uncertainty the dots already reflected. Markets, not the Fed, did most of Q2's tightening: 2Y yields +75bp, 10Y +45bp, while the policy rate held. This piece sets out the full case ahead of the 2pm ET announcement using the June meeting -- the only one with a confirmed official record -- as its evidentiary base, and will be updated with the confirmed result.

29 July 2026

This update replaces proxy measures with direct platform data: the euro area MFI composite mortgage rate (not a policy-rate stand-in), fully backfilled mortgage- and enterprise-specific credit-standards series, household debt-to-GDP, home prices across eleven euro area member states, and construction-sector confidence for the euro area, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. The mortgage rate rose 267bp (1.31% to 3.98%, Q3-2021 to Q4-2023) and remains 52bp below its peak even as market yields sit above theirs — a pass-through gap that is the key forward risk. The correction reached the core: Germany (-12.9%) and France (-6.4%) were the second- and third-sharpest of 14 geographies studied, behind only Luxembourg (-15.7%). Household debt-to-GDP fell continuously (61.4% to 50.5%) — genuine deleveraging, not a rate-driven shock. A supply-side construction-sector crisis in Germany and France remains unresolved after four years, while the Netherlands staged a full V-shaped recovery on both demand and supply sides.

29 July 2026

Using the platform's newly implemented Shiller CAPE series (1,747 monthly observations, 1881-2026), this piece establishes the shared historical baseline for a ten-part research programme on US equity valuation. Over the full sample, CAPE has averaged 17.77 (median 16.61, range 4.78-44.20); today's reading of roughly 41 sits at approximately the 99th percentile of this entire history. A more striking finding: splitting the sample into three eras shows CAPE averaged 14.61 before 1945 and 14.54 from 1945-1989 -- nearly identical over 45-plus years -- before nearly doubling to 27.26 since 1990. This is evidence of a genuine regime shift around 1990, not just an unusually high current reading, raising an open question later papers in this series will address: is the relevant historical comparison the full 145-year average, or the post-1990 era specifically?

28 July 2026 · 6 min read

On 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel launched coordinated strikes against Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei; Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, a route for roughly one-fifth of global oil and LNG trade. The conflict has since cycled through repeated escalation and fragile de-escalation, remaining unresolved at publication. This report decomposes it into four distinct economic channels -- physical supply, risk premium, sanctions and financial-channel, and shipping cost -- and provides a ten-scenario quantified framework spanning oil, gas, inflation, rates, credit, equities, gold and currencies, together with scenario-conditional asset allocation guidance and the lucabindi.com House View.

26 July 2026 · 25 min read

The ratio of total corporate equity value to national output -- the Buffett Indicator -- is computed here entirely from lucabindi.com's own warehouse for the first time: 302 quarters, 1945 Q4 through 2026 Q1, using nominal GDP and Federal Reserve Z.1 Financial Accounts corporate-equity data. The current reading of 218.1% sits roughly 2.9 standard deviations above the full-sample mean of 86.1%, narrowly below the series' all-time high one quarter earlier. In building this platform's own version, we confirmed a fact with real institutional consequence: FRED discontinued its entire Wilshire 5000 index family in June 2024, meaning the conventional numerator cited by most public Buffett Indicator trackers is no longer freely available anywhere. This paper reconstructs the indicator's history and theory, recommends a trend-adjusted institutional methodology, and states the current numerator's own limitation plainly rather than presenting a single number without context.

25 July 2026 · 9 min read

Manoj Pradhan and Charles Goodhart argue, in The Unanchored Central Banker (2026) and its predecessor The Great Demographic Reversal (2020), that de-globalisation and population ageing will structurally raise real interest rates and fiscal pressure, eroding central banks' ability to anchor inflation expectations. This paper evaluates that thesis against current market pricing and derives a 10-15 year path for US and Eurozone policy rates and 10-year sovereign yields. Current pricing already shows repricing under way: the US 10-year Treasury trades near 4.7% (highest since January 2025) against a Fed funds range of 3.50-3.75%; the German 10-year Bund trades above 3.2% (highest in over fifteen years) against an ECB deposit rate of 2.25%. Our central scenario is a US 10-year peak of 5.5-6.0% and a German 10-year peak of 4.0-4.5% within 10-15 years, with the key uncertainty being whether sovereign debt-sustainability constraints cap the rise before it reaches this range, forcing central banks toward financial repression instead - the 'unanchoring' mechanism the authors themselves describe.

25 July 2026

For nearly three decades, fiscal policy was the junior partner in macroeconomic management, with independent, inflation-targeting central banks as the primary stabilisation tool. This paper argues that division of labour has broken down, and that fiscal policy has returned not as a temporary crisis response but as a structurally larger, more strategically directed instrument of economic policy. The Global Financial Crisis briefly restored fiscal policy to prominence before a pivot back to austerity; COVID-19 broke that pattern definitively, and the resulting fiscal posture has not reverted to pre-pandemic norms. What is emerging is not a return to twentieth-century Keynesian demand management but a new fiscal paradigm oriented toward long-run strategic state investment -- industrial policy, defence capacity, infrastructure, and technological competitiveness -- with first-order implications for debt sustainability, fiscal-monetary interaction, inflation, and financial markets.

24 July 2026 · 28 min read

Between roughly 1990 and the mid-2010s, the global economy operated under a coherent, mutually reinforcing macroeconomic policy framework -- fiscal discipline, independent inflation-targeting central banks, deep trade globalisation, and open capital markets -- known in its stability dimension as the Great Moderation. This paper argues that the world is not experiencing a sequence of unrelated shocks (the Global Financial Crisis, the eurozone debt crisis, COVID-19, the 2021-2023 inflation surge, the return of great-power competition) but a structural transition from one internally consistent policy regime to another, driven by the accumulation of vulnerabilities beneath decades of apparent stability, the exhaustion of globalisation-driven disinflationary tailwinds, and a shift toward security-maximising statecraft. It traces this evolution chronologically and sets out four long-term scenarios for how the transition may resolve, laying the foundation for the nine research papers that follow in this series.

23 July 2026 · 42 min read

Vietnam combines a substantial current account surplus (6.33% of GDP, 2024) -- consistent with its manufacturing-export-driven growth model -- with the lowest unemployment rate (1.52%) of any country in this research programme. GDP per capita ($5,066) places it in the same income tier as Indonesia, materially below the other economies profiled so far. Governance scores are negative on both Control of Corruption (-0.25) and Rule of Law (-0.31, 2024). Government debt is confirmed genuinely unavailable from World Bank for Vietnam -- the same class of gap already found for Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia in this programme.

22 July 2026 · 6 min read

Saudi Arabia's current account showed a deficit of -2.56% of GDP in 2025 -- a genuinely notable finding for a major oil exporter, flagged here rather than assumed away, though this platform's data cannot confirm whether softer oil prices, Vision 2030 diversification spending, or another factor is the primary driver. Reserves remain substantial ($505.2bn), and inflation (2.08%) and unemployment (3.04%) are both moderate. Government debt is confirmed genuinely unavailable from World Bank for Saudi Arabia specifically -- the same class of gap already found for Hong Kong and Vietnam in this programme.

22 July 2026 · 6 min read

Poland, Central Europe's largest economy ($1.04 trillion GDP, 2025), had the highest inflation (3.81%) of any Phase 1 country in this research programme, alongside low unemployment (2.98%) and solid governance indicators. The current account showed a modest deficit (-0.87% of GDP). The most severe data limitation found across this entire programme appears here: the only government debt figure available on this platform is from 1994, 31 years stale -- this platform effectively cannot assess Poland's current fiscal position at all, stated as a genuine gap rather than worked around.

22 July 2026 · 6 min read

Indonesia, ASEAN's largest economy ($1.45 trillion GDP in 2025), combines a broadly balanced current account (-0.11% of GDP) with moderate inflation (1.91%) and unemployment (3.24%). GDP per capita ($5,060) places it in a materially different income tier than the other economies profiled in this programme so far -- a structural difference to keep in mind for any cross-country comparison. Governance scores are negative on both Control of Corruption (-0.54) and Rule of Law (-0.21), below the global average. The government debt figure available on this platform dates to 2009 -- sixteen years stale -- and is stated as historical context only.

22 July 2026 · 6 min read

The UAE combines a large current account surplus (14.48% of GDP, 2024) and substantial reserves ($292.3bn) with low inflation (1.25%) and unemployment (2.17%). Governance is mixed: strong on Control of Corruption (1.17) but more moderate on Rule of Law (0.50). The single largest limitation in this profile is stated plainly: the only government debt figure available on this platform dates to 2013, twelve years before this writing, predating the 2014-2016 oil price decline that reshaped Gulf fiscal positions -- it is presented as historical context only, not a current reading.

22 July 2026 · 6 min read

Taiwan's current account surplus has grown sharply -- 14.07% of GDP (2024) to 17.45% (2025, confirmed actual) to an IMF in-year estimate of 18.12% (2026) -- directly reflecting its dominant position in global semiconductor exports. Inflation has been low throughout, peaking at just 2.71% in 2022 and easing to 1.30% by 2025. Government debt (29.0% of GDP, 2023) is among the lowest in this programme, though the figure is now stale. This profile is structurally more limited than every other country in this programme: Taiwan is not a World Bank member, so GDP per capita, population, unemployment, and governance indicators are all genuinely unavailable on this platform -- stated plainly rather than worked around.

22 July 2026 · 6 min read

Hong Kong combines a large current account surplus (13.34% of GDP, 2024) with remarkably stable inflation (0.25% to a peak of just 2.10% through the entire 2021-2023 global shock) -- a direct consequence of its currency board arrangement pegging the Hong Kong dollar to the US dollar, which imports US monetary conditions rather than setting rates domestically. Housing affordability is the most extreme in this programme (property price index 204.3, the highest of any country profiled). Two real limitations are stated rather than hidden: government debt is confirmed genuinely unavailable from World Bank for Hong Kong specifically, and the most recent reserves figure on this platform is from 2023, two years behind the profile's other data.

22 July 2026 · 6 min read

Switzerland combines the highest GDP per capita ($114,769) of any country in this programme with an unusually stable inflation record -- CPI peaked at just 2.84% in 2022 (versus 5-7%+ elsewhere) and has since fallen to 0.15%, alongside a still-negative Swiss National Bank policy rate (-0.045%). Government debt is the lowest in this programme (22.3% of GDP) and governance indicators are among the strongest. Switzerland's foreign reserves ($1.076 trillion) are exceptionally large relative to its economy, reflecting SNB currency intervention history rather than simple trade accumulation. A genuine, unresolved tension: consumer confidence is sharply negative while construction confidence is positive -- noted, not explained away. Stated gaps: no NIIP, fiscal balance, or capital-markets data exists for Switzerland on this platform, and the World Bank unemployment figure (4.87%) may not match Switzerland's own national methodology.

22 July 2026 · 7 min read

South Korea combines a $1.87 trillion economy ($36,227 per capita) with a substantial external buffer -- a 6.57% of GDP current account surplus and $436.6 billion in reserves -- and a genuine, sustained disinflation using a conventional interest-rate framework (CPI down from 5.09% in 2022 to 2.12% in 2025). Government debt is moderate at 47.8% of GDP. One real tension surfaces in this profile rather than being smoothed over: unemployment is very low (2.68%) while business confidence is negative, a genuine disconnect between two labour-market-adjacent signals. Stated gaps: no NIIP, fiscal balance, household/corporate debt, or capital-markets data exists for South Korea on this platform.

22 July 2026 · 7 min read

Singapore combines an exceptionally strong external balance sheet -- a 16.7% current-account surplus, $432 billion in reserves, and a top-tier net creditor position -- with a distinctive exchange-rate-targeting monetary framework that has delivered comparatively low, stable inflation even through the 2021-2023 global inflation shock (peak 6.47% in 2022, down to 1.19% by 2025). Its headline 167.8% government-debt-to-GDP ratio is a genuine interpretive trap for unwary readers: it reflects capital-market development and CPF-system bond issuance, not fiscal distress, and is explained accordingly rather than left to alarm. Real limitations in this profile are stated plainly: unemployment data is not yet available (a live World Bank outage), no capital-markets data exists for Singapore on this platform, and the GDP growth figures used are nominal and USD-denominated rather than real.

21 July 2026 · 7 min read

lucabindi.com is built on a canonical data model with 320 registered series across 16 official providers, 284 of them currently populated with 156,605 real observations. Every article must name its exact evidence base and separate observation from interpretation. This piece explains that design plainly, including two real cases this month where the platform's own verification process caught genuine errors before publication: a three-source unit contamination in a US inflation series, and a code bug that had silently substituted a regional aggregate for two countries' individual growth data (caught because the resulting growth rates were suspiciously identical). Both were fixed and documented rather than quietly patched.

20 July 2026 · 5 min read

The US commercial banking sector's loan-to-deposit ratio has risen every year since 2022: 62.8% in June 2022, climbing steadily to 71.8% by June 2026. Deposits grew 6.6% over the period while loans grew 21.9% -- loan growth has consistently outpaced deposit growth, steadily narrowing the sector's liquidity buffer. Commercial and industrial lending followed a different, more cyclical path: a genuine contraction from $2,761.7bn (June 2024) to $2,680.1bn (June 2025), followed by an 8.0% recovery to $2,894.3bn by June 2026. The aggregate loan book's steady climb was masking this separate dip-and-recovery cycle in business lending specifically.

20 July 2026 · 5 min read

Real GDP growth across the US, Germany, France, the UK, and Japan has diverged sharply and persistently, not just in the latest print. As of Q1 2026, year-on-year growth ranks: United States 2.68%, United Kingdom 0.91%, France 0.87%, Japan 0.32%, Germany 0.34% -- a 2.36 percentage-point spread between the fastest and slowest economy. US growth has held between 2.0% and 2.7% for five consecutive quarters; Germany has not cleared 0.4% over the same window. Japan shows the sharpest deterioration, decelerating from 1.82% to 0.32% in three quarters. Long-end government bond yields do not track this growth ranking at all -- Japan and Germany, the two weakest growers, carry the lowest 10-year yields, reflecting each country's own rate regime rather than relative growth prospects. This piece was delayed briefly during verification after an initial Germany/France GDP fetch was found to have pulled the Euro Area aggregate by mistake -- a genuine platform bug, now fixed, with corrected data used throughout.

20 July 2026 · 6 min read

The Federal Reserve's balance sheet has contracted 24.8% from its April 2022 peak ($8.97 trillion) to $6.74 trillion as of 15 July 2026; the ECB's has contracted further in percentage terms, 32.4% from its June 2022 peak (EUR 8.84 trillion) to EUR 5.97 trillion as of 10 July 2026. Both central banks have been shrinking their balance sheets for over three years, but the most recent six weeks show a genuine divergence: the Fed's total assets were essentially flat (a marginal increase from $6.71tn to $6.74tn), while the ECB's continued contracting (from EUR 6.14tn to EUR 5.97tn, -2.7%). This is the launch edition of a Report intended to track both balance sheets on a recurring basis.

20 July 2026 · 5 min read

Ranking 22 economies by net international investment position (NIIP) as a share of GDP at end-2025 reveals a spread of over 675 percentage points, from Hong Kong's approximately +540% to Greece's -136.8%. The United States, at -71.1% of GDP (using the platform's canonical FRED-sourced series, itself reflecting a major June 2026 BEA revision from an original -89.5% estimate), sits as one of the largest net debtors in the sample in relative terms, yet is not treated as fragile in practice because its liabilities are overwhelmingly dollar-denominated. The ranking splits into genuinely different stories rather than one spectrum of virtue and vice: financial-centre creditors (Hong Kong, Singapore) differ structurally from surplus-accumulation creditors (Japan, Germany, China), and currency-union debtors (Spain, Portugal, Greece) face a different adjustment path than a debtor borrowing in its own floating, reserve currency (the United States).

20 July 2026 · 6 min read

The week's central event is Thursday's ECB Governing Council decision. The platform's own canonical data confirms the deposit facility rate has held at 2.25% since June's hike -- the first since 2023 -- and consensus expects another hold, with attention on forward guidance for a possible September move. UK CPI (Wednesday) and Friday's flash PMIs across the US, Euro Area, UK, and Japan are the week's other genuine data risks, the latter offering the first real-activity read since the June central bank meetings.

20 July 2026 · 4 min read