The inevitable video-call backlash is well underway. Videoconferencing is exhausting, people complain. Our brains have to work harder than they do in face-to-face interactions. And so we give each other advice on how to combat Zoom fatigue and speculate whether it’s worse for extroverts. However, some people have been having the opposite experience. Since they got the hang of video ...

Thanks to coronavirus-induced declines in tax revenue — and record filings for unemployment benefits — state and local governments are in crisis. Many have underfunded pension systems and few have significant reserves. None can run deficits as readily as the federal government. Like so much of the economic news as of late, the closest precedent is the Great Depression. In ...

The US Treasury Department has asked more than 200 public companies that received almost $1 billion in loans under the Paycheck Protection Program to return the money, even if they technically qualify as small businesses. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said the program wasn’t intended for these companies because they have access to the capital markets. Yet consider the federal ...

India is reopening, but a partial end to the world’s harshest coronavirus lockdown is failing to bring cheer. Anxiety still clouds the outlook amid a lack of meaningful fiscal help for workers and companies. Starting from May 04, PM Narendra Modi’s government relaxed restrictions on the production, sale and transport of goods in districts identified as green and orange. However, virus ...

Harvard economist Melissa Dell recently won the 2020 John Bates Clark medal, which is given to outstanding economists younger than 40. Dell’s most famous research concerns the importance of institutions in a country’s long-term political and economic development. It carries a dire warning for the US as well as other nations. What is an institution? To most people it means ...

Bloomberg US and European futures rose along with Asian stocks, as a number of economies move toward easing lockdowns. Crude oil gained for a fifth consecutive day. S&P 500 futures climbed after the index staged a turnaround late Monday to end firmer as California sounded a note of optimism in its fight against the virus. Stocks outperformed in Australia and ...

Bloomberg Indian stocks rose, rebounding from their steepest drop in more than a month, according to reports. The S&P BSE Sensex Index added 1.2% to 32,108.35 as of 9:37 am in Mumbai, and the NSE Nifty 50 Index advanced by the same magnitude. Both gauges lost more than 5% as a nationwide lockdown was extended. The regional MSCI Asia Pacific ...

Bloomberg Carson Block is predicting a plunge in stocks after they roared back from the coronavirus sell-off in March. “The direction has to be sharply downward,” the renowned short seller and founder of Muddy Waters Capital said. Block finds it hard to believe equities are trading at their current valuations even though demand has been “crushed” by the virus and ...

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp. (BofA) received approval for 265,500 small-business loans totaling $24.9 billion in relief funds from the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program. Since the program reopened on April 27, the bank has sent 213,000 promissory notes to small businesses informing them that their loans were approved by the SBA, Bank of America said Monday in a ...

Bloomberg Canadian business loans grew at the fastest pace since 1981 in March as companies tapped credit lines to get them through the coronavirus crisis. Loans to businesses rose 54% annualised to C$949.2 billion ($668 billion), according to Bank of Canada data. The increase is the sharpest since 1981, reflecting the rush to borrow to stay afloat as countrywide shutdowns ...