Take Brexit Britain and Trump’s America. Add climate change, instability in the Middle East, cryptocurrencies, and self-driving cars… and you have the world in 2018: hopeful, yet seemingly unpredictable.
We have assembled 11 unlikely events that - if they somehow happened - have the potential to profoundly affect the world as we know it.
To assess the political, economic, financial, and social impacts, IG brought together global economic/political experts to give their perspectives and predictions.
Explore some of the great unknowns facing us all today
Learn more about this project
Category: Economy Region: South America
Our panel of experts (interviewed March-May 2018):
Associate Professor of Global Public Policy, University of Oxford
Dr Thomas Hale is Associate Professor of Global Public Policy and Director for China Engagement at Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. He holds a PhD in Politics from Princeton University, a Masters degree in Global Politics from the London School of Economics and an AB in public policy from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School. Hale has published four books, most recently Beyond Gridlock and Between Interests and Law: The Politics of Transnational Commercial Disputes.
Professor of Political Science and Diplomacy, Pusan National University
Robert Kelly is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy, Pusan National University in South Korea. His work focuses on international security and political economy. His areas of interest are East Asian security, US foreign policy, the Middle East, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Kelly has appeared as an analyst on television news services, including the BBC and CNN.
Chief Currency Strategist, IG
John Kicklighter is Chief Currency Strategist and head of DailyFX in New York City and San Francisco. He specialises in combining fundamental and technical analysis with money management. On his personal accounts, he trades spot currency, financial futures, commodities, stocks and options. Kicklighter holds a Finance and Investment degree from the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College in New York City.
We asked our experts to rate how likely it is that Venezuela will default on its debt.
Panel members also rated the impact they would expect this event to have.
Find out about another risk facing the world in 2018 and beyond
The Social Impact