Opinion

Break out the ticker tape — it’s happened at last. It took an unprecedented pandemic stimulus package to do it, but euro-area inflation has reached the European Central Bank’s (ECB) eternally out of reach 2% target. What should the ECB do next? Precisely nothing. The recovery from the pandemic has triggered surging inflation across the world but it’s partly a ...

Zoom Video Communications Inc, maker of the ubiquitous videoconferencing tool that made a global pandemic less isolating, just reported another quarter of explosive growth. While its business may not continue to soar quite so much, Zoom is well positioned, appears to have a loyal fan base and continues to innovate. It has also achieved a rare corporate feat: It created ...

A crisis of political legitimacy is hanging over Malaysia’s government just when it needs to make tough decisions to tackle a relentless surge in Covid-19 infections. It’s hard to see the ongoing state of emergency ending in August as promised. Parliament was suspended in January in the name of fighting the pandemic, allowing Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to stay in ...

When a company faces shareholder activism, the temptation is to find quick rewards for investors at the expense of the business. But GlaxoSmithKline Plc — now a target for Elliott Management Corp — is in a bind because its heavy dividend commitments have already long constrained its ability to invest in new medicines. The UK drugmaker should use the forthcoming ...

Ocean conservation was once a goal for Democrats and Republicans alike. In Congress, they collaborated to ensure that US fisheries would be sustainably managed, to protect imperiled marine creatures by banning the use of driftnets and shark finning, and to set aside large areas of the ocean for special protection. While he was president, George HW Bush designated six National ...

President Joe Biden’s blacklist on investment in Chinese companies offers the kind of compromise that could help steady relations, though it likely won’t be enough to inspire Beijing to reciprocate and cool tensions. In releasing an update to his predecessor’s Executive Order 13959, Biden held the same line enunciated by Donald Trump in “addressing the threat from securities investments that ...

Theatres went dark in London’s West End last year, while galleries closed and concert halls stood silent. But there was one creative industry that flourished during lockdown: the reading and publishing of books. Many in the industry, as well as parents and educators, are now hoping the habit will stick around post-Covid. My guess is it just might. HarperCollins, one ...

The coronavirus pandemic, with its lockdowns and travel bans, has prompted an unprecedented shakeup of everything we thought we knew about daily labor. How we work, where and when. There’s never been a better time to also reexamine who toils with us. For many companies, that has meant championing diversity, a crucial consideration for blue-chip employers eager to widen the ...

As the nation reflects on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre, in which a White mob razed a prosperous Black community and killed many of its inhabitants, conversations have focused on the economic costs of such racial violence. But to understand where it comes from — and where American society is headed — one must recognise the extent to ...

Human behaviour during Covid has upended one of the most fundamental assumptions of economics, even if economists haven’t yet come around to admitting it. In sum: People are worse at big, important decisions than previously thought, and better at small, trivial ones. Standard economics theory holds that people make relatively good decisions when there is a lot at stake. At ...