Economics & Business Archive

The coronavirus pandemic is challenging Algeria’s aging health care system, as the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 approach 45,000, with some 1,500 deaths. Yet rather than the virus itself, it is the Algerian regime’s use of the pandemic to quell popular dissent that is pushing the country deeper into crisis. The authorities have seized on the public health emergency to arrest activists and clamp down on the flow of information, actions that will likely only worsen Algeria’s long-running political stalemate. Anti-government demonstrators calling themselves Hirak, or “movement” in Arabic, had been taking to the streets on a weekly basis […]

South Korea, deservedly well-known for one of the world’s most successful initial responses to the coronavirus pandemic, is now seeing a dangerous spike in COVID-19 cases. On Thursday, 441 new infections were reported, the largest daily increase since March. The country has now seen triple-digit increases in new cases for 15 consecutive days, and patients have tested positive in all 17 provinces. Authorities have placed new restrictions on restaurants and ordered schools and kindergartens to close in Seoul, the bustling capital that is now the epicenter of the outbreak. The situation shows just how difficult it is to control this […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Guest contributor Lavender Au wrote the lead story in China Note this week. When the U.S. tightened restrictions on Huawei’s access to semiconductor chips last week, the Trump administration’s goal became clear, if it wasn’t already: kneecap the Chinese telecom giant’s technological advancement. Under a previous round of U.S. trade restrictions in May, Huawei was blocked from using American technology to make its own semiconductors, but the company found workarounds by obtaining chips designed by third parties. The latest […]

The heads of Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook fended off tough questions from lawmakers last month at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee. To help allay concerns about monopolistic business practices, each CEO sought to portray his company as representing American values and serving American interests. They all did so in part by pointing to a threat supposedly bigger than their own companies: China. “If you look at where the top technology companies come from, a decade ago the vast majority were American. Today, almost half are Chinese,” Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg said in his opening remarks. “There’s […]

Not long ago, The New York Times labeled President Donald Trump the “biggest obstacle” to his own administration’s China policy. Trump’s trade war with China, which he launched as part of his campaign promise to get tough on its unfair trade practices, has always had unclear and shifting goals, while producing minimal results. Even as his administration has taken a relatively tough line against China’s high-tech industrial policies, Trump’s odd affinity for authoritarian leaders, including his “good friend” in China, Xi Jinping, kept getting in the way of a coherent policy, especially when it came to protecting human rights. Any […]

From spyware wielded by autocrats to expanded surveillance by police states under the cover of the coronavirus pandemic, new technologies are helping authoritarian governments entrench their power and target their critics. They are also amplifying the spread of disinformation. Yet many democracies are also using these same technologies in troubling ways. This WPR report provides a comprehensive look at how these state-of-the-art tools are being harnessed by different governments around the world.

The coronavirus pandemic will likely push Latin America into its worst-ever recession, with the region’s economy expected to shrink by more than 9 percent in 2020, according to the International Monetary Fund. But in a part of the world with few economic bright spots, Chile is forecast to perform relatively well, with a 7.5 percent contraction this year and growth of 5 percent in 2021, which would be one of Latin America’s more vigorous economic recoveries. At first glance, this is surprising, as Chile is among the most open economies in the region and is sensitive to volatility in commodity […]

When Cyril Ramaphosa became president of South Africa in February 2018, many South Africans saw it as a “new dawn” for their country. In the aftermath of Jacob Zuma’s corruption-plagued presidency, Ramaphosa seemed to offer the hope of competent leadership and accountable government. Commentators spoke of “Ramaphoria,” as the new president sought to revive the spirit of idealism that informed the early days of post-apartheid South Africa in the 1990s, and to engineer a definitive break with what he acknowledged were “nine wasted years” under Zuma. Ramaphosa promised more than just a change in the political atmospherics, however. His administration […]

President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, traveled to Bogota this week, ostensibly to announce up to $5 billion in financing under the White House’s new United States-Colombia Growth Initiative. The money had been pledged months ago by the U.S. Development Finance Corporation, and it is contingent on investment-worthy projects, in any case. But the timing of the visit was hardly a coincidence. One of the officials traveling with O’Brien was Mauricio Claver-Carone, the White House’s point man on Latin America, who is making an audacious bid to lead the Inter-American Development Bank, or IDB. In remarks following his […]

On July 23, the Tianwen-1 spacecraft lifted off from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island, in southern China, bound for Mars. If all goes according to plan, the probe is scheduled to reach the red planet in February 2021. That would make China just the third country in history to land on Mars, after the United States and the Soviet Union. While Tianwen-1 is focused on scientific exploration, the decision for any country to invest in such an ambitious endeavor is always deeply political. And while analysts often emphasize the security motives driving China’s pursuit of advanced space […]

Five months into the COVID-19 pandemic, East Asian countries like Vietnam, Taiwan and South Korea have garnered widespread praise for their effective handling of the coronavirus. Nearby Laos, with just 22 confirmed cases and no deaths, has gone largely unnoticed. While the World Health Organization has praised Laos’ prevention measures as “exemplary,” the mountainous Southeast Asian nation’s sparse rural population, limited transportation system and dearth of major cities have aided its response. But while Laos has so far weathered the public health effects of the pandemic, the economic impacts are starting to bite. In May, the World Bank cautioned that […]

The global economic map is reshuffling, and predictions abound on where the pieces will land. As companies scramble to protect themselves from U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade wars, the growing technology rivalry between the United States and China, and the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, will the long-promised “reshoring” of manufacturing back to higher-wage countries finally take place? Will the U.S. and China “decouple” their economies, particularly for the technologies of the future? If so, how will Europe, Japan and others respond? For the moment, the big winner is uncertainty. We have moved from a world in which companies […]

The special protection that investors based in the United States have long enjoyed when they do business abroad seems to be on its way out, and it’s about time. Unlike other private parties, including workers and consumers, foreign investors have access to special arbitration arrangements to protect their businesses in partner countries that sign bilateral investment treaties or preferential trade agreements with the U.S. This mechanism, known as investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS, has attracted increased scrutiny since the U.S. insisted on including an expanded version of it in the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s. Now, both […]

The past year has been a perfect storm for America’s shale gas companies, on both the domestic and international fronts. Record-setting levels of American gas production and consumption in 2019 masked the fact that the industry was already under siege, as years of insufficient returns pushed investors away from financing new drilling and exploration. Meanwhile, newly commissioned projects aimed at exporting liquified natural gas, or LNG, faced headwinds on international markets due to a global supply glut. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these issues, as it further depressed domestic and international demand for natural gas. The collapse in oil prices as […]

From the coronavirus’s initial outbreak in the sprawling city of Wuhan in central China, urban areas from New York and Sao Paulo to London, Moscow and Johannesburg have been the primary epicenters of the COVID-19 pandemic. On the Trend Lines podcast this week, WPR’s Elliot Waldman spoke to Ronak B. Patel, the founder and director of the Urbanization and Resilience Program at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, about the historical trends that have made large cities more susceptible to outbreaks of disease, and how municipalities can protect their residents from future pandemics. Listen to the full conversation here: And if you […]

Amid its struggles with the public health and economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, the United Arab Emirates announced a wide-ranging restructuring of federal government agencies and senior personnel last month. The UAE’s prime minister and vice president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who rules the emirate of Dubai, detailed the shake-up in a series of tweets, saying it was intended to craft an “agile government quick in solidifying the achievement of our nation.” Previous government reshuffles in the small but wealthy Gulf nation were notable for their public relations aspects, such as the creation in 2016 of two […]

In 1950, less than one-third of the world’s population lived in cities. Today, that share has leaped to 55 percent, according to the United Nations, and is projected to grow further to 68 percent by 2050. Cities have also become much more globally interconnected and much more diverse, as improvements in transportation infrastructure and the ease of commercial air travel led millions of people to migrate to urban areas. In many countries, these trends have produced impressive economic gains, but have also come with significant damage to the environment, as well as risks to health, as we’re seeing now with […]