Lead Story
Femicides and local anti-violence centres in Italy: data-driven targeting needed
Granular mapping shows high risk areas do not align with AVC coverage, and openings reduce sexual violence but not femicides; policy must be better targeted to risk geography.
A collaborative study based on a long-running Italian dataset reveals that femicide risk follows discernible geographic patterns but those patterns are not fully matched by where anti-violence centres are located. Using machine learning and territorial indicators, Cerqua and colleagues identify areas with elevated femicide risk and map AVC coverage against this risk geography. The resulting mismatch suggests current resource deployment may miss pockets of vulnerability, undermining prevention. The authors caution that even with more AVCs, femicides-being rare and driven by deep-seated dynamics-may not be readily curbed without complementary measures.
The causal analysis uses a staggered design to compare provinces that opened an AVC with those that did not, over a five-year horizon. The headline finding is stark: the opening of a new AVC does not produce a statistically significant reduction in femicides. This is echoed in sub-analyses that filter for intimate partner femicide or focus on high-risk zones, where the result remains non-significant. Yet the study finds a meaningful decline in reported sexual violence following AVC openings, estimated at around 20 percent. The divergence between these two outcomes raises questions about the mechanisms at work.
Two different channels appear at play. On one hand, AVCs seem to play a role in reporting dynamics and community awareness, potentially deterring some forms of violence or encouraging help seeking. On the other hand, preventing a lethal outcome such as femicide may require earlier, broader interventions: tighter enforcement of restraining orders, more proactive risk assessments by law enforcement, and broader cultural change. The research flags that femicide prevention cannot be reduced to a single policy instrument and emphasises the need for strategic, data-driven targeting of resources.
Policy implications flow from the findings. Predictive analytics should complement local knowledge in allocating funds for AVCs, ensuring high-risk territories receive attention beyond traditional, input-based distributions. The EU’s Directive on gender-based violence gains empirical weight from these findings: specialised services work, particularly in reducing sexual violence, yet the design of interventions must explicitly address femicide risk through integrated policing, justice, and education strategies. The study therefore argues for investment that is both data-led and tightly coupled with enforcement, social services, and schools.
The work also offers a cautionary note about interpretation. Reporting artefacts can influence measured crime outcomes; a reduction in sexual violence might partly reflect increased reporting or genuine prevention. Yet the central message remains: better-targeted coverage informed by risk maps is needed if protection for vulnerable women is to improve in a meaningful, measurable way. As policy debates in Italy and across Europe continue, the study provides a rigorous framework for testing not just where centres are, but where protection is most needed.
In This Edition
- Femicides and anti-violence centres in Italy: data-led targeting needed
- How the Fed makes decisions: disagreement and the power of the Chair
- Europe sovereignty is investors' defining investment challenge
- The young US funds shooting the lights out over three years
- HSBC European Index leads 2025 European fund flows and performance
- US employment: breakevens, benchmarking and blindspots
- Trump’s North Sea claim versus UK data
- Why American Shale Know-How Is Becoming a Global Export
- Russia's Diesel Exports Are Soaring
- NOAA maps critical minerals off American Samoa
- EU Hydrogen Platform opens buyer expressions
- EU 2025: wind and solar beat fossil fuels in electricity
Stories
Femicides and anti-violence centres in Italy: data-led targeting needed
Granular mapping shows high risk areas do not align with AVC coverage, and openings reduce sexual violence but not femicides; policy must be better targeted to risk geography.
A new study exposes a mismatch between the geography of femicide risk and where local anti-violence centres are deployed in Italy. By creating a granular dataset of femicides across 2006-2022 and coupling it with machine-learning risk scores across more than a hundred territorial variables, researchers identify zones with heightened risk that do not coincide with AVC presence, suggesting gaps in protection for vulnerable women.
The causal analysis asks whether opening an AVC in a high-risk area translates into fewer femicides. Using a staggered difference-in-differences approach, the authors find no statistically significant reduction in femicides following AVC openings. The same method, applied to other forms of gender-based violence, reveals a roughly 20 percent decline in reported sexual violence after AVC openings, a finding interpreted as evidence of both reporting effects and preventive activity beyond policing.
Several mechanisms may explain the divergent results. Femicides are rare, high-severity events that accumulate over long trajectories of abuse, making prevention difficult to measure in the short term. In contrast, sexual violence reports may be responsive to enhanced awareness, school programmes, and community outreach tied to AVCs. The research emphasises that reporting and reduction dynamics can move in opposite directions, and that data on femicides require long horizons and richer context to demonstrate causal impact.
Policy implications flow from the findings. The authors urge data-driven resource allocation that aligns AVC deployment with predictive risk maps rather than relying on local initiative alone. They also stress that AVCs are necessary but not sufficient: broader enforcement, timely risk assessments, and prevention strategies that address root causes of gender-based violence must accompany service provision. The work dovetails with EU directives that push for specialised support services, while highlighting the need for funding, strategic placement, and cross-agency integration to lower femicide risk.
Caution is warranted in interpreting the results. The authors acknowledge reporting biases and the difficulty of capturing clandestine violence. They therefore present their conclusions as robust within their design and as a prompt for further experimentation and policy adjustment. If future data show reductions in femicides when risk maps guide AVC placement, the case for data-driven targeting will be strengthened; if not, policymakers may need to retool the mix of preventive, legal, and social interventions.
Stories
How the Fed makes decisions: disagreement, beliefs, and the power of the Chair
Disagreement among policymakers across decades is widespread and measurable, with the Chair’s stance often shaping final outcomes more than other members' preferences.
A CEPR analysis of FOMC transcripts going back decades suggests that monetary policy decisions are not the product of a smooth, unified machine. Instead, policymakers repeatedly advance multiple policy options in meetings, and dissents are rare only in public votes; behind the scenes, disagreements about how the economy transmits policy remain pervasive.
The central finding is that disagreement arises mainly from different beliefs about the trade-offs in policy: whether rate changes primarily affect inflation, real activity, or both. Those who emphasise inflationary risk tend to argue for tighter policy; those prioritising employment or slack argue for looser settings. These beliefs appear to be more about mental models of the economy-how strongly policy translates to prices versus output-than about competing objectives.
Crucially, the Chair's preferences tend to travel through to final decisions with unusually high fidelity. Even when members articulate divergent views, the leader’s signals predict the outcome far more closely than any other member's explicit stance. The research underscores how leadership can shape monetary policy, even in a forum designed for consensus.
The authors note that the formal practice of dissent is not a reliable proxy for underlying disagreement. The absence of formal dissent does not imply unanimity of belief. The work invites watchers to pay closer attention to internal deliberations, minutes, and the evolution of collective views around growth and inflation. As leadership transitions approach, the weight of the Chair in setting course becomes a crucial, observable variable for markets and policymakers alike.
Observers will want to track any shifts in the Chair’s influence around leadership transitions and in the frequency and character of dissents. The paper implies that the external narrative of policy consensus masks deeper debates about how policy affects the real economy and inflation, with implications for transparency and accountability.
Stories
Europe sovereignty is investors' defining investment challenge
Sovereignty over data and strategic autonomy are shaping Europe’s investment agenda, with a multi-trillion push expected to build AI, defence, and energy independence.
European investors describe sovereignty as the defining investment challenge for 2026. The argument is that Europe must mobilise as much as three trillion euros over the next five years to foster AI capability, reinforce defence, and fund energy transition, while data remain concentrated largely in the United States. Estimates of potential value from sovereign AI imply substantial economic upside, underscoring the strategic calculations behind capital allocation.
The tension between strategic autonomy and global data flows is driving policy attention on data governance, cross-border data sharing, and the localization of storage. Policymakers face the challenge of lowering operational frictions for industry while maintaining robust security and privacy regimes. These frictions influence where capital is directed, with implications for both public budgets and private returns.
The signal for markets is that policy developments will dictate how quickly and where large-scale investments will flood in 2026-27. Energy autonomy, AI governance, and defence spend are central to the calculus, and policy choices will determine European competitiveness and resilience in supply chains. Investors will watch for concrete governance frameworks, trade-offs between openness and protection, and milestones in data governance that unlock or constrain cross-border AI deployment.
Analysts emphasise that sovereignty is not a single constraint but a multi-domain problem including technology standards, foreign investment rules, and the reliability of digital infrastructure. The report suggests that policy design will directly influence the geographic distribution of investment activity, reinforcing the importance of well-calibrated regulatory regimes to attract long-horizon capital.
As 2026 unfolds, policy shifts on AI data governance, defence expenditure, and energy technology will be the primary levers shaping investment activity. The emphasis on sovereignty signals a future where Europe seeks to insulate critical capabilities from external shocks while continuing to participate in global technology ecosystems. The near-term implication is a more selective, risk-aware investment environment, with heightened scrutiny of cross-border data arrangements and security-backed infrastructure.
Stories
The young US funds shooting the lights out over three years
New funds launched in 2022 show strong asset gathering and mixed performance, with ESG-oriented launches lagging on average and 2026 inflows under close watch.
Trustnet’s survey of funds launched in 2022 charts a mixed performance across three years. Some strategies delivered substantial returns, with multi-hundred-million inflows into diversified strategies, while ESG-focused launches underperformed their non-ESG peers in the same window. The results illuminate how new fund products are finding their footing in a shifting market environment marked by rising scrutiny of sustainability credentials and performance.
The analysis highlights rapid asset accumulation for certain 2022 launches, illustrating how quickly new funds can attract significant capital when their narrative aligns with market trends. However, it also shows that ESG-oriented funds are not guaranteed to outperform conventional or generalist strategies, raising questions about how investors evaluate risk, reward, and climate-forward claims. The near-term takeaway is that product design and manager selection remain critical to performance in 2026.
The data points to a broader theme: the appetite for responsible investing persists, but the real-world performance of ESG funds varies. Markets are rewarding those that deliver clear execution capabilities alongside their sustainability theses, and investors are becoming more adept at distinguishing between hype and durable strategies. As flows evolve through 2026, monitoring fund-level returns, expense ratios, and risk profiles will be essential to understanding how the ESG narrative translates into long-run value.
Analysts caution that three-year horizons may understate or overstate the true trajectory of performance depending on market cycles. The work implies that 2026 will test whether ESG-focused strategies can deliver resilience and alpha in an environment of shifting rates, inflation expectations, and policy signals. The ongoing flow of new launches will be a key indicator of how the sector adapts to these macro forces.
Investors should also watch how fees evolve, how performance incentives align with risk-taking, and how assets shift between passive and active approaches. The findings imply that management quality and strategy clarity matter as much as the sustainability banner when determining future inflows and outcomes. As 2026 unfolds, the industry will closely examine whether ESG launches can sustain momentum or whether market dynamics tilt inflows toward non-ESG or hybrid models.
Stories
US employment: Breakevens, Benchmarking and Blindspots
Fulcrum Asset Management estimates a shift in the US job market signal, with breakevens and lagging data suggesting a weakening in employment growth despite robust headline figures.
A modelling approach from Fulcrum Asset Management indicates a meaningful unwind in the US labour-market momentum. The estimated breakeven rate for jobs per month has declined from around 150,000 in early 2025 to roughly 70,000 recently, with expectations of around 45,000 by end-2026. The model also suggests that half of the initial gap in labour-market indicators remains, and that missing data can be reconstructed to yield credible estimates. The implication for markets and policy is that conventional employment readings may overstate the strength of the labour market when data are delayed or incomplete.
Investors and policymakers interpret such indicators with caution, noting that a decelerating job market can inform inflation dynamics and a potential shift in the stance of monetary policy. The evidence underlines the importance of complementary indicators and timely revisions to official data releases. It also raises questions about the reliability of headline employment numbers during periods of data gaps, and about how models can fill those gaps to support decision-making.
Analysts expect revisions to official employment data to influence market sentiment, particularly when alternative indicators diverge from government statistics. The near-term watchpoints include how official payrolls data evolve, how revisions affect market expectations for rate moves, and how the broader data ecosystem absorbs missing or late information.
The broader takeaway is that the labour market remains a critical hinge for inflation and growth trajectories, yet the signal is imperfect and often mediated by data collection lags. As 2026 advances, markets will favour indicators that combine multiple measures of slack, wages, and vacancies, and policymakers will weigh these signals against real-time conditions in the economy and financial markets.
Stories
Trump’s North Sea claim versus UK data
Political assertions about North Sea reserves clash with official UK data, illustrating how rhetoric can shape energy policy debates.
A recent public statement by Donald Trump during a high-profile event asserted the North Sea holds centuries of oil and gas reserves. UK authorities, however, report end-2024 reserves of around 2.9 billion barrels of oil equivalent, with indigenous crude reaching about 320,000 barrels per day in 2024 and a domestic refinery share projected to shrink further. The contrast between claim and data feeds into a broader debate about energy security, domestic production, and the pace of transition.
Analysts stress the importance of relying on authoritative reserves figures when policy and investment decisions hinge on energy security. Wind energy has reduced imports and contributed to lower energy costs, while some analyses emphasise the limits of North Sea reserves to meet all domestic demand over the coming decades. The discourse illustrates how political narratives can influence public perception and policy priorities, even when they diverge from official statistics.
Observers note that wind energy has been a key factor in reducing energy bills and in diversifying energy supply, a point reinforced in independent analyses. China’s leadership in wind deployment and the cost advantages of renewables provide context for energy policy discussions in Europe and the UK, potentially moderating calls for expanded drilling in the North Sea. The near-term implication is that policy debates will continue to wrestle with the balance between domestic production, energy independence, and affordability.
Markets and policymakers will watch how reserve estimates evolve and how wind-energy data translate into cross-border energy dynamics. The narrative around North Sea rhetoric versus UK data underscores the importance of data integrity and clear communication in shaping policy and investor expectations.
Stories
Why American Shale Know-How Is Becoming a Global Export
US shale expertise is moving abroad as domestic production cools, opening opportunities in Turkey, Argentina, and beyond alongside large capex projects elsewhere.
Reuters-style summaries of Oil Price material indicate that as US shale production plateaus, American expertise is being exported to overseas shale plays. Continental Resources has expanded in Turkey and Argentina, eyeing substantial shale potential, while Middle Eastern and other markets explore unconventional plays with foreign technology and know-how. The trajectory points to a recalibration of global shale dynamics as technology and experience circulate internationally.
The narrative emphasises that production growth in the United States may slow, but the transfer of know-how could accelerate development in other regions. Investors and policymakers watching non-OPEC supply sources may need to re-evaluate risk and opportunity as overseas basins scale up with American techniques and equipment. Capex in international shale plays is likely to influence future export patterns and global energy security considerations.
Analysts caution that overseas shale development carries its own set of constraints, including regulatory, political, and logistical hurdles. The transfer of technology and the formation of joint ventures signal a broader geoeconomic shift, with potential implications for global energy prices, investment flows, and geopolitical alignments. The near-term watchpoints include capex milestones and early production results in overseas basins.
The underlying message is that American shale expertise remains a valuable asset in the global energy toolkit, capable of shaping the next phase of global supply growth as producers in other regions apply the lessons learned in the United States to broaden unconventional resource development.
Narratives and Fault Lines
- Data versus policy: The Italy femicide study foregrounds predictive analytics as a complement to local judgement, highlighting how data can reshape resource allocation even when outcomes remain uncertain. The tension between evidence-based targeting and political orthodoxy will frame funding debates for AVC networks.
- Sovereignty versus openness: Europe’s investment challenge sits at the crossroads of data governance, security, and openness. Sovereignty aims to insulate strategic sectors while maintaining access to global tech ecosystems, creating a fault line between protectionism and global integration.
- Energy security versus transition pace: North Sea reserve debates sit beside wind and solar capacity gains, illustrating a recurring theme: rhetoric around resources can outpace or distort measured energy data, prompting calls for transparent, timely metrics to guide policy.
- Global reach of domestic capability: The export of US shale know-how points to a redistribution of industrial capability beyond borders, with implications for global pricing, geopolitics, and the balance of energy independence between regions.
- Market discipline on climate commitments: The rise and fall of ESG fund performance raises questions about how climate-focused investment strategies fare through cycles, affecting capital allocations and the credibility of sustainability as a value driver.
Hidden Risks and Early Warnings
- Mismatch between risk geography and resources: If predictive targeting remains imperfect, high-risk areas may still be underserved, leaving protection gaps for vulnerable populations.
- Overstated policy certainty: Public narratives around energy reserves can mislead investors and policymakers, potentially delaying prudent diversification or investment in alternative energy and security measures.
- Data gaps in labour markets: Missing or delayed official employment data can obscure the true health of the economy, complicating decisions on rate policy and social spending.
- Cross-border shale expansion: Overseas shale development could encounter regulatory or political headwinds that derail capex plans and alter global supply expectations.
- ESG performance fidelity: The value of ESG-focused funds hinges on credible, durable performance; scepticism about long-term alpha could fuel capital shifts and market volatility.
Possible Escalation Paths
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A shift in FOMC leadership: A transition could sharpen the Chair’s influence, accelerating or delaying policy moves depending on committee dynamics.
The leadership change could realign the balance of risk tolerance and inflation versus growth in policy outlooks, with markets watching dissents and dissent signals for early clues.
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Policy tightening or easing in Europe tied to sovereignty signals: Key data governance decisions could unlock large-scale investment, altering the pace and direction of AI, defence, and energy independence programmes.
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Escalation in Middle East and North Africa energy politics: New capex commitments to overseas shale or LNG assets could respond to sanctions dynamics and force shifts in global energy flows, with observable effects in Brent, WTI cues, and regional refining.
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Major overseas shale projects advance or stall: Capex and early production results in Turkey, Argentina, and other basins will signal whether US expertise can sustain a global expansion, affecting global supply outlooks.
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European hydrogen market activity accelerates: Buyer interest and contracted volumes could materialise into firm deals, altering import dependency patterns and grid balancing strategies across the EU.
Unanswered Questions To Watch
- Will AVC openings in high-risk areas reduce femicides in the medium term?
- How durable is the 20 percent drop in sexual violence after AVC openings?
- Do predicted risk maps align with actual deployment of resources in subsequent years?
- Will UK and EU data governance reforms unlock large-scale sovereign investment?
- How will leadership transitions at the Fed alter market expectations for inflation and growth?
- Do overseas shale projects translate into sustained production gains or regulatory friction?
- What signs will indicate shifts in US labour market slack beyond headline payrolls?
- How will European energy independence plans interact with global oil and gas markets?
- Will Venezuela-Europe trade dynamics tighten or ease sanctions-associated flows?
- Are there structural reasons why femicide risk is less responsive to AVCs than other violence forms?
- How quickly will the EU hydrogen platform translate expressions of interest into actual procurement?
- Will Japan’s nuclear restart influence regional energy security calculations in Asia?
This briefing is published live on the Newsdesk hub at /newsdesk_commodities on the lab host.