South Africa's new plan to end power cuts is seriously flawed. Here's why
Jan 09, 2024 23:03 pm UTC| Economy
South Africa experienced unprecedented electricity shortages in 2023 as ageing coal plants became increasingly prone to breakdowns. The country urgently needs to develop new electricity generation facilities and reduce...
Consumer confidence is rising amid gloomy economic news – here's what that means and why it matters
Jan 08, 2024 22:24 pm UTC| Economy
Peoples confidence in the UKs economic outlook improved towards the end of 2023, despite continuing to battle a cost-of-living crisis. Although it has strengthened over the year to December, consumer sentiment as this...
Jan 08, 2024 22:21 pm UTC| Business Economy
The 21st century has seen a massive expansion in the ways that people can consume tobacco and nicotine. Innovative new products include electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS or e-cigarettes) and heat-not-burn (HnB)...
Jan 08, 2024 22:19 pm UTC| Economy Politics
It has become an article of faith among many economists that Chinas pro-market reforms of the 1980s and 1990s ushered in a sustained reduction in poverty. This narrative relies on figures from the World Bank, showing...
Why the UK census should not be replaced with alternative sources of data
Jan 08, 2024 22:18 pm UTC| Economy
Every ten years since 1801 save for a wartime interruption in 1941 the UK government has conducted a national census of England and Wales. This is a big event. The data collated in the last survey, in 2021, is still...
Global triggers: why these five big issues could cause significant problems in 2024
Jan 04, 2024 04:55 am UTC| Insights & Views Economy
The tensions between the US and China made the global economy shudder in 2023. The ramifications of the Ukrainian war echoed beyond the countrys border. In Africa, the coup détat in Niger and Gabon contributed to...
Economically, Australia has been lucky – what matters now is what we do next
Jan 04, 2024 04:40 am UTC| Economy
Australia has long thought of itself as the lucky country. Whenever its economy has started to falter, a commodity boom has usually come along to restore prosperity… until in the 1980s, when the rest of the world...
Johannesburg in a time of darkness: Ivan Vladislavić’s new memoir reminds us of the city’s fragility
Economist Chris Richardson on an ‘ugly’ inflation result and the coming budget
Biden administration tells employers to stop shackling workers with ‘noncompete agreements’
IceCube researchers detect a rare type of energetic neutrino sent from powerful astronomical objects