Opinion

The ‘gig economy,’ RIP. Well, maybe. As you’ll recall, the gig economy refers to a radical transformation of the nature of work and US labor markets. Digital platforms better match workers with jobs (aka, gigs). Uber was, and is, the prototype of this upheaval. Its existence seemed confirmed. One survey by well-regarded labor economists Lawrence Katz of Harvard and Alan ...

The US- China trade dispute seems to have an odd casualty: tech stocks. The market dived on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling nearly 500 points before rebounding by the end of the day after President Donald Trump said he would deploy investment limits against China, which has already been responding to US tariffs with those of its ...

Mainland investors starry-eyed about the listing of a homegrown tech company will be disappointed by Xiaomi Corp.’s decision to postpone the China half of its stock debut. You can expect moms and pops in Hong Kong to feel a bit deflated in turn. Without Chinese depositary receipts to stir interest, demand in the city will likely be more muted, too. ...

Every French leader since the 1980s has been elected on a mandate to fight unemployment — and failed. Whatever else he accomplishes, getting people into work is the one thing French President Emmanuel Macron will be judged on at the end of his term. The Macron plan is basically a wish-list of reforms that France’s senior technocratic elite has urged ...

Banks must bear much of the blame for previous financial crises. In the next one, ordinary investors could play a more central role. Ironically, they’ll do so through vehicles created with them in mind – exchange-traded funds, or ETFs. These listed funds are passive by nature, designed to track the performance of an index of stocks, bonds, currencies or commodities ...

Tariffs wouldn’t be a good look for fashion retailers. Right now, clothing and footwear aren’t included in the list of Chinese products threatened with punitive duties by the US. But as my colleague David Fickling has noted, adding another $200 billion would probably mean consumer goods being drawn into the fray. Clothing accounts for about $35 billion of China’s annual ...

Facebook Inc. didn’t learn from the last two years of internet scandals. The company’s Instagram app announced a YouTube-like video hangout called IGTV, which I suspect is going to be a hit. Instagram has quickly become a go-to digital home base for younger people and is on its way to becoming Facebook’s next huge advertising money-minting machine. Analysts at KeyBanc ...

The escalating trade war between the United States and China poses crucial, though unanswerable, questions: Is this the beginning of the end of the post-World War II international trading system or will the present arrangements survive, as they have for 70 years? Almost certainly, historians will judge favourably the postwar expansion of trade (it has never been completely “free” but ...

I hate Google Glass, and I think I’ve hit upon a way to get everyone to understand the dystopic future this eyewear augurs: Give it to flight attendants. The summer of 2014 was a turning point for me. I had always considered myself a genuinely nice person who would never consider violence against a stranger. But then, at a conference ...

Italy’s auction of five and 10-year government bonds on Thursday will be the most important test of investor appetite since the country’s political crisis subsided. Buyers are understandably skittish. Appetite for the 10-year securities the government sold at the end of May was poor, something I remarked on at the time. Since then, yields on Italy’s two-year bonds have climbed ...