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US home prices are expected to trough in the next 12 months while default rates on underlying loans in UK RMBS will continue to rise, reaching a projected peak in 12 to 18 months time, according to a global survey of RMBS investors. The Valuation Inputs Consensus survey, which was conducted by Standard & Poor's Fixed Income Risk Management Services (FIRMS) division, tracked the valuation projections of 64 institutions active in the US and European structured finance markets. The survey has been underway since Q1 2009 in order to monitor investors' input assumptions for the valuation of these key securitization assets.

Amid rising public debt burdens that will force governments to improve efficiency, a new OECD study highlights best practices and identifies where and how national administrations can provide improved services at lower cost to the public.

After the continued drop in quarterly merchandise trade volumes of the Group of seven (G7) countries during the last quarter 2008 and first quarter 2009, the trend reversed with more stable growth volumes in the second quarter 2009. Year-on-year, though, trade volume growth levelled-off at two-digit levels less than in the second quarter 2008.

NexGen Advisors, a global business restructuring and transformation firm, collaborated with American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC), a premier benchmarking organization, to launch the first-ever cross-industry Global Organization Efficiency Survey (GOES). The result of GOES is a comprehensive white paper that outlines key benchmarks for Organizational Efficiency.

Natural gas vehicles (NGVs) have been in the marketplace for a long time, but despite technology advances and the ready availability of natural gas, it is still not widely accepted as a transportation fuel in many parts of the world. However, according to a new report from Pike Research, the NGV sector is poised for a new period of growth.

Entering the most uncertain budgeting season in history, the CIO Executive Board, a program of the Corporate Executive Board, collected and conducted detailed analysis on spending, staffing, technology adoption and performance data from nearly 200 large organizations spanning the globe and industries.

OECD composite leading indicators (CLIs) for August 2009 continue to point to recovery in all major economies with CLIs for France and Italy pointing to a potential expansion; however these expansion signals should be interpreted with some care as the CLIs are less precise in differentiating between expansion and recovery than in identifying turning points.

The unemployment rate for the OECD area was 8.6% in August 2009, 0.1 percentage point higher than the previous month and 2.3 percentage points higher than a year earlier.

Despite the economic downturn, U.S.-based companies continued to lead in completing merger-and-acquisition (M&A) deals with emerging or high-growth market companies during the first half of 2009, according to KPMG International's latest Emerging Markets International Acquisition Tracker (EMIAT) study.

The global economic crisis has reversed the impressive economic growth of recent years in Emerging Europe and Central Asia, hitting families hard with higher unemployment and lost wages. Financially weaker governments will need to protect poor people while strengthening institutions and infrastructure to attract investors, the World Bank said at a press briefing at the World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings.