Showing 1 - 10 of 12
It's the economic history, stupid
Oped, Iker Saitua, Published on 14/01/2026
» Every year, I walk into a first-year lecture hall in Bilbao at the University of the Basque Country (EHU) and watch shoulders slump. The title of the course I'm teaching -- "Economic History" -- draws a similarly dejected reaction from my students: "Meh." "Boooring." "What's this even for?" Some call it "the history class", as if it belonged to another century.
The loveliness of a flying beetle
Roger Crutchley, Published on 20/07/2025
» The recent cricket match between England and India at Lord's was reportedly briefly delayed by a swarm of ladybirds which were bothering the players. It is believed to be the first recorded instance of "ladybirds stopped play". More importantly, swarm is not the correct term for these flying beetles. The collective noun for ladybirds (ladybugs for our American friends) is a "loveliness".
Venezuela's fall deepens under Maduro's rule
Oped, John J Metzler, Published on 15/05/2025
» What was akin to a celebration of global dictators and political rogues, Venezuela's Marxist dictator, Nicholas Maduro, visited Moscow to join Vladimir Putin in celebrating Russia's May 9 Victory Day Parade, the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union's triumph over Nazi Germany. Mr Putin's pantheon included communist China's leader Xi Jinping and Brazil's President Lula da Silva, among others.
Trump's tariffs are likely illegal
Oped, Aziz Huq, Published on 25/03/2025
» US President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs on Mexican, Canadian, and Chinese imports rest on shaky legal ground. But they are unlikely to be struck down in court. By exploiting a gap between the law and brute power, the Trump administration is laying bare the weakness of America's constitutional order.
Tit-for-tat tariffs as Trump escalates trade war
News, Kate Sullivan & Josh Wingrove, Published on 08/03/2025
» US President Donald Trump delivered on his threat to hit Canada and Mexico with sweeping import levies and doubled an existing charge on China, spurring swift reprisals that plunged the world economy into a deepening trade war. Yesterday, Mr Trump backtracked and postponed Canada and Mexico tariffs for a month.
Make America Great Again heads to Panama
Oped, Ruti Teitel, Published on 04/01/2025
» US President-elect Donald Trump clearly does not intend to pursue a "good neighbour" policy. He has been mocking Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by calling him "governor" while proclaiming that a country of 40 million people should become the 51st US state. His first telephone conversation with Mexico's new president, Claudia Scheinbaum, had to be followed by Ms Scheinbaum politely saying that she had agreed to none of the terms Mr Trump claimed that she had.
Economic goals facing Mexico's new president
Oped, Santiago Levy, Published on 07/06/2024
» Mexico's first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, will take office on Oct 1, and for at least the first half of her six-year mandate, the coalition of parties that brought her to power will have a majority in both houses of Congress.
The world wins when women win
Oped, Indermit Gill & Tea Trumbic, Published on 08/03/2024
» In May 1988, Alejandra Arévalo became the first female geologist to enter an underground mine in Chile. In doing so, she defied a popular myth: that a woman brings bad luck by venturing into a mine. She also broke the law. At the time, Chilean women were forbidden to work in underground mining or in any other job that "exceeded their strength or put at risk their physical or moral condition." Ms Arévalo's defiance helped spark a revolution. By 1993, the restrictions on women in mining had been abolished; and by 2022, women represented 15% of the Chilean mining workforce, a threefold increase since 2007.
It's a good time to be working
News, Allison Schrager, Published on 07/03/2024
» The pandemic was so bad for working women, especially mothers, that it was known in some quarters as the "she-cession". But the recovery -- and can we please not call it the "she-covery" -- has been pretty good for them.
'Women's economics' goes mainstream
Oped, Antara Haldar, Published on 10/11/2023
» William Shakespeare's 1597 comedy Love's Labour's Lost tells the story of four Frenchmen as they navigate the tension between commitment to intellectual development and the quest for domestic bliss. Some four centuries later, Harvard economist Claudia Goldin reimagined the tale from the vantage point of American women balancing career and family. Now, Ms Goldin's profound insights into women's labour-market outcomes have won her a Nobel Prize in Economics.