Explainer
How international disputes are settled when there is no world government
States cannot be hauled before a judge the way citizens can. Yet a patchwork of courts, tribunals and arbitration panels resolves a surprising number of quarrels.
Analysis
Explainers and long-form analysis of the forces behind the news.
Analysis: page 2
Explainer
Following the money: a guide to how global payment systems actually settle
Tapping a card or sending money abroad feels instantaneous. Behind it sits a layered architecture of messages, ledgers and central bank accounts that determines when a payment is truly final.
Analysis
Adapting cities to extreme heat
Urban areas trap warmth. Planners are turning to trees, materials and building codes to keep residents safe.
Analysis
The economics of subscribing to everything
From software to cars, companies want recurring revenue. Customers are starting to count the cost.
Analysis
Why public money for new stadiums divides economists and city leaders
Arenas are often pitched as engines of local growth. Many economists remain sceptical, and the reasons say much about how cities should judge large projects.
Explainer
Who really pays a tariff? How import duties pass through to prices
A tariff is collected at the border, but its cost is shared among foreign exporters, domestic importers, retailers and consumers. How it divides depends on market power and the time horizon.
Analysis
Why cybersecurity is as much an economics problem as a technical one
Software flaws persist not because nobody knows how to fix them, but because the people who could fix them often do not bear the cost of leaving them unfixed.
Explainer
What moves commodity prices: supply shocks, storage and the dollar
Oil, metals and grains trade in markets where small imbalances can produce large price swings. Understanding why requires looking at inventories, futures curves and the currency in which they are priced.
Analysis
How coalition governments are negotiated, and why some last longer than others
When no party wins outright, the real contest begins after polling day. Coalition talks turn election results into governing programmes through bargaining over posts and policies.
Analysis
Prevention is better than cure, but the economics of paying for it are harder than they look
Spending on preventing illness is widely praised and chronically underfunded. The reasons lie in who pays, who benefits and when.
Explainer
How clinical trials are designed to tell whether a treatment really works
Proving that a medicine helps is harder than it sounds. Randomisation, control groups and blinding exist to separate genuine effects from chance, hope and bias.
Explainer
Fixed, floating or somewhere in between: how exchange-rate regimes differ
Every country must choose how its currency relates to others. The choice is a trade-off between stability, monetary independence and openness to capital — and no country can have all three.
