Research in this program, organized by date.
Lithuania has combined rapid EU income convergence with energy decoupling from Russia and defence spending above 5% of GDP; the structural test is whether security mobilisation, renewable investment and EU funds raise productivity fast enough to offset ageing and a shrinking labour base.
Türkiye combines deep manufacturing, low sovereign debt and strategic geography with still-high inflation, external energy dependence and an unfinished shift toward higher-technology production; the central test is whether current disinflation becomes a durable institutional regime.
Ukraine has preserved macroeconomic and institutional continuity under war, but its long-run trajectory depends on converting external finance, EU accession, reconstruction and defence innovation into productive capacity while reversing demographic loss.
A new government, the end of UNAMI, the final phase of the anti-ISIS coalition transition and renewed regional energy disruptions expose the same structural constraint: Iraq can mobilize large hydrocarbon rents, but electricity, water, finance, federal coordination and private-sector absorption determine whether those rents become durable productive capacity.
Five years after the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan combines stronger territorial control and domestic revenue collection with falling per-capita income, shallow finance, mass returns, restricted female education and employment, and growing dependence on regional corridors.
Hong Kong is becoming more tightly integrated with Mainland China's financial, technological and spatial systems while retaining a separate currency, capital account, tax regime, customs territory and common-law commercial architecture. Its future value depends on whether deeper integration creates more flow than it removes jurisdictional differentiation.
North Korea has emerged from the border-closure shock with stronger state direction, recovering trade and industry, deeper Russia ties and a more institutionalized two-state posture, while household welfare, hidden military flows and the exact scale of nuclear capabilities remain difficult to measure.
Taiwan's AI-led export boom and semiconductor concentration increase its global economic importance while imported energy, rapid aging, divided government and cross-Strait military pressure make resilience a problem of infrastructure and institutions as much as technology.
Vietnam's move to FTSE Secondary Emerging status begins a phased test of whether non-prefunding, global-broker access and upgraded market infrastructure can convert index eligibility into durable institutional capital and deeper corporate financing.
Euro adoption and MSCI reclassification have changed Bulgaria's institutional and market-access framework; the next test is whether fiscal dynamics, labour scarcity and shallow equity liquidity allow those changes to translate into productivity and durable market depth.
Financed rail expansion, power reform and new Asian resource partnerships are beginning to connect Kazakhstan's commodity base to logistics, processing and private capital.