Search

HUANG FEIRUO was once a respected scientist who studied ways to make pigs gain weight more quickly. He ran government-funded research projects at Huazhong Agricultural University in the central city [...]

As the Chinese proverb almost says, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single white paper. That, at least, is how a lot of EU policy is made. [...]

When economists talk about bottlenecks, they typically refer to points in a supply chain that slow down production. The global economy is at present providing a rather literal example of [...]

NOW AND THEN 'Samuel' is plagued by old cravings, though he says he has quit gambling for good. The 25-year-old got hooked on online betting at 17 and, at the [...]

The security case for bringing home manufacturing is obvious. Is there an economic one? A TTITUDES TO MANUFACTURING were a small but telling split in the cold war. The Soviet [...]

EARLY-RISING NEW YORKERS may spot an unusual patrol group in Manhattan this autumn. They sport sensible shoes, latex gloves and an armful of brown paper bags. As in spring, they [...]

THERE ARE lots of ways to measure China's rise. It is the world's second-biggest economy, its biggest manufacturer and its biggest creditor. In 2021 it passed another milestone. That year, [...]

Pay transparency laws do not work as advertised T HE SALARY negotiation has long been one of the trickiest parts of hiring or being hired. Ask for too little and [...]

THE SALARY negotiation has long been one of the trickiest parts of hiring or being hired. Ask for too little and you may leave money on the table; ask for [...]

Rape has long had the lowest charging rate of all crimes. To a degree this is inevitable. The crime is defined by the absence of consent, which can be tricky [...]

A few months before America's presidential election in 1980, George H.W. Bush paid a visit to Beijing. He got a frosty reception. Days earlier, Bush's running mate, Ronald Reagan, had [...]

Nikki Haley's team pushed back on speculation that she would suspend her campaign if she failed to win in New Hampshire, issuing a memo that laid out its strategy for [...]

ON AN UNSEASONABLY warm day in October, the silence outside broken by birdsong and artillery fire, Olga Goncharova sat in her office on the ground floor of the Kherson Regional [...]

Ivermectin may help covid-19 patients--but only those with worms "YOU ARE not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it." As the message from the Food and [...]

Why regulators should treat some cryptocurrencies like banks TWELVE YEARS after bitcoin was born, governments are still struggling to cope with cryptocurrencies. Britain has banned Binance, a crypto exchange and [...]

The new government may make getting an abortion even harder Under Italy's abortion law, introduced in 1978, women can terminate a pregnancy within the first 90 day (and subsequently in [...]

Pressing forward High construction costs will be a drag on planned infrastructure investments "THIS IS A unique opportunity," says Bent Flyvbjerg, an economic geographer who studies infrastructure projects. "There hasn't [...]

AS THE HEAD office of Northern Heavy Industries (NHI) comes into view, so does a huge slogan fixed permanently to its roof in metre-high red Chinese characters, where you might [...]

International bodies often start small. The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), established in 1944, held decades of discussions before it began to set air-traffic rules. In 1952 the European Organisation [...]

These are hard times for many local governments in China. Slowing economic growth and a teetering property market make it hard for them to service their massive debts. Some even [...]

DEATH, TAXES and extortionate realtors' fees: for decades these have been the three grim certainties of American life, and one of them is avoidable. Every time a home changes hands, [...]

"More Energiewende , more business for us," says Leonhard Birnbaum, chief executive of E.ON, a German power-grid operator that enjoys a near monopoly in Europe's biggest economy. The set of [...]

Lofty goals are admirable in any organisation; just don't forget the deliverables. Ibram X. Kendi managed the first part in pledging to "solve seemingly intractable racial problems of our time" [...]

"We are sending our construction industry into the abyss," warns Rolf Buch, boss of Vonovia, Germany's biggest landlord. The crisis afflicting German builders is far from the country's only economic [...]

Scrapping the celibacy rule would make it easier to recruit clerics who don't abuse children T HE POPE is not in the habit of taking advice from news papers. After [...]

The nairobi expressway curves 27km (17 miles) through Kenya's capital. Built by the China Road and Bridge Corporation, a state-owned enterprise (soe), the road will open later this year. Under [...]

Grim tales test China's claim to be governed by and for the people M OST CHINESE with an internet connection have probably seen the video of a mentally ill woman [...]

Under Mr Putin's control The government and leading economists disagree O LAF SCHOLZ reacted on March 27th with unusually harsh words to a question by Anne Will, a popular Sunday [...]

The taxman's temptation Politicians turn to a tax that is enticing on paper, but tricky in practice O N MARCH 8th, the day the price of a barrel of Brent [...]

THE GATES of North Korea, closed since January 2020 ostensibly to keep covid-19 out, are finally creaking open. On August 27th North Korean state media announced that citizens who had [...]

Hassan is an unlikely smuggler. Affable and a bit nerdy, he looks better suited to his old job as an international public-relations adviser. Now he is one of the many [...]

Some years ago China's leader, Xi Jinping, issued instructions to the reporters working for state-run newspapers and television stations. He demanded "critical reports with accurate facts and objective analysis". But [...]

One of China's most widely revered works of art is called "Along The River During The Qingming Festival". The painted scroll, five metres long, portrays bustling scenes of life in [...]

Milton friedman used to joke that nothing is so permanent as a temporary government programme. So it nearly was with America's moratorium on student-loan payments. The debt-relief scheme—which suspended payments, [...]

Proposals to boost the poorer half of the country fall short A FTER A MONTH of rows about cake and Prosecco--who consumed them; who invited whom; who knew--Boris Johnson has [...]

It is quite common, amid Lebanon's current chaos, for cars without number-plates to breeze through the traffic and be waved through checkpoints with nobody batting an eyelid. Last year nearly [...]

OF every 17 Britons in work, one is on the payroll of the National Health Service (NHS). Despite the huge headcount, more workers are needed. One in every 11 NHS [...]

The popularity of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is remarkably sticky. His approval rating rarely falls below 60%. While voters express discontent with the state of the economy and security, [...]

Much more to say Europe enters the gender wars DEBATES ABOUT transgender rights have raged most angrily in the Anglophone world, but they are now intensifying across Europe. Last month [...]

JOE BIDEN wants to rebuild America, and he reckons that American firms can help foot the bill. Central to the president's grand infrastructure-investment push is a plan to raise the [...]

Corporate taxes are likely to rise in America. Who will shoulder the costs? J OE BIDEN wants to rebuild America, and he reckons that American firms can help foot the [...]

Will Joe Biden's proposed taxes on capital make America an outlier? IF PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN succeeds in raising America's top rate of federal capital-gains and dividend tax to 39.6%, as [...]

In China a show of discontent can matter without being a call to revolution. Currently, bold claims are being made for a spate of pensioner protests provoked by changes to [...]

A BAN ON evictions sounds simple. In practice, it was anything but. As covid-19 spread across America in early 2020, the federal government, 43 states and countless municipalities issued some [...]

It was a familiar scene. On January 21st hundreds of protesters holding "defund the police" signs flooded Atlanta's Peachtree Street. Windows were smashed and a police car was torched. Like [...]

Why the West's proposed price cap on Russian oil is no magic weapon N INE MONTHS after the invasion of Ukraine, oil money continues to fill Vladimir Putin's war chest. [...]