Opinion

It’s been a year since Covid-19 first shut down much of Europe, and signs of preparation for a post-pandemic world are everywhere. Whether it’s the heated discussion over vaccine passport, the UK starting on its latest path out of lockdown or investors dumping safe-haven assets, there’s faith that the most ambitious vaccination campaign in history is going to deliver a ...

It would have been a blow to London if the UK’s most prominent unicorn decided to list its shares in tech-friendly New York or Amsterdam. Instead, Deliveroo has picked its home stock exchange for an initial public offering. Valued at more than $7 billion in its most recent private funding round, the food delivery app is issuing a vote of ...

In previous US recessions, a familiar fiscal pattern has almost always played out. Deprived of revenue, the state and local governments closest to the American people lay off employees and cut essential services. If and when Congress comes to the rescue, it’s often too late. The economic damage has been done. In some ways, the coronavirus crisis has disrupted this ...

A blockbuster year for securities trading in 2020 helped some of Europe’s investment banks gain market share as they compete against bigger Wall Street rivals. But the titans of US finance — led by JPMorgan Chase & Co, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley — also expanded, meaning the bigger picture of New York dominance is still the same. ...

Google and Facebook make a lot of noise about how their main services are free to use. And it’s true, they are. But what they don’t highlight is their role in making almost everything else we consume online more expensive. Consider all the paywalls and paid services that are rolling out across the internet. News, films, music and even theatrical ...

New York is the place where more startups — from EV battery makers to flying cars — have gone public by way of the boom in SPACs, or special purpose acquisition companies. Once listed, SPACs are on the lookout to place their vast sums in promising enterprises (which then don’t have to go through the complex initial public offering process). ...

For a century, there’s been a key metric for judging the direction of the oil industry: The number of years it would take for wells to run dry. The reserves-to-production ratio or R/P — calculated as oil reserves, divided by annual production — has remained at eerily consistent levels since John D Rockefeller’s day. At major oil companies and in ...

A bruising battle for supremacy between two of the world’s richest men is hogging the limelight, but the silent changes in India’s retail landscape deserve equal attention. The ongoing digital transformation of the corner kirana stores, tens of millions of shops catering to 1.3 billion consumers, will matter for everyone from Unilever NV and Procter & Gamble to State Bank ...

Why can’t China step in to fill the chip shortage? The vaunted factory floor of the world has flooded the global economy with goods, and has often had to deal with domestic oversupplies itself. Why then has it been largely on the sidelines of the debate over solving the worldwide semiconductor shortage? The stark reality is that, when it comes ...

If populism on the political right corrupts democracies, populism on the left ruins economies. For the latest evidence take a closer look at the housing market of the German capital, Berlin. A year ago, a rent cap took effect in the city that was unprecedented in Germany. For all apartments built before 2014, rents were frozen at whatever they were ...