The world is unequal enough and the Covid-19 pandemic threatens to make things more unequal still. Poorer countries have had to take on debt they will struggle to pay back. Their more fragile healthcare systems and crowded cities forced them into stricter and more economically harmful lockdowns, and poverty rates have risen dramatically. Now, they rightly fear a staggered recovery ...

Emerging from nearly a year of battling an economy dragged down by Covid-19 and a rickety financial system, Beijing is realising what the most important collateral damage has been: consumers. Without their wallets and balance sheets, China’s economic blueprint for the next five years won’t work. That explains why authorities have been talking up consumer protection, household leverage and the ...

In January, Joe Biden will take charge of an executive branch left in woeful disrepair. Practically every important federal institution has been scorched by four years of sustained assault by his predecessor — none more so than the State Department. President Donald Trump has damaged American diplomacy in word and deed. His secretaries of state, first Rex Tillerson and then ...