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Development Education Featured Global World

Empowering youth with opportunities and jobs to end poverty

At the beginning of my advocacy journey, I often searched for affordable ways to present myself at events. A friend of mine had launched a small clothing business, offering creative designs that young people like me could afford. She hired a tailor to bring her ideas to life, but struggled with rent and limited capital. […]

Banking Featured Finance World

Exclusive: Micron to exit server chips business in China after ban, sources say

 Micron plans to stop supplying server chips to data centres in China after the business failed to recover from a 2023 government ban on its products in critical Chinese infrastructure, two people briefed on the decision said. Micron was the first U.S. chipmaker to be targeted by Beijing – a move that was seen as retaliatory […]

Featured Finance Global World

US weekly jobless claims decline, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs estimate

Economists estimate weekly jobless claims fell to 217,000 from 235,000. The number of Americans filing new applications for jobless benefits fell last week, economists at JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs estimated on Thursday, but lackluster hiring has left many on unemployment rolls. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped to a seasonally adjusted 217,000 for the […]

Featured Business Economy News World

US workers experience large month-to-month fluctuations in pay

Over the past decade, cities and states in the US have enacted ‘fair workweek’ laws to stabilise worker schedules. This column uses administrative data on US workers’ paycheques and firms’ payrolls to document considerable monthly fluctuations in earnings. Pay instability is widespread, disproportionately hits lower‑paid hourly workers, and is largely driven by firms’ labour demand […]

Education Economy Featured News World

Reforming the education of economists in Europe: Breaking the tyranny of the top five

Many European countries have adopted the American model of doctoral training and academic evaluation. While this model suits America’s vast, mobile labour market, in Europe it has created perverse incentives and distorted research priorities. This column argues that Europe needs a more pluralistic, socially grounded, and inclusive system for the training of economists. It proposes […]

Economy Business Featured World

When the heat rises, progress on women’s economic empowerment cools

Hotter-than-usual years can slow or derail advances in women’s legal rights. A new analysis spanning five decades finds that temperature anomalies—years significantly hotter than a country’s historical norm—are associated with slower gains in legal equality for women, especially in low-income settings. The logic is simple but consequential: extreme-weather events tend to strain budgets and institutions, prompting governments […]

Gender Employment Featured News World

Grants to women-owned businesses: when what’s for her does not stay with her

What explains why grants to women-owned microenterprises often fail to yield improvements in business outcomes, especially as compared to grants to men’s microenterprises? This is the topic tackled in the new working paper “Mitigating the Impact of Household Expropriation on Female Entrepreneurship: Experimental Evidence from Ghana,” by Francisco Campos, Adriana Conconi, Elwyn Davies, Marine Gassier, […]

Development Business Featured World

Measuring what matters for business: The new B-READY data in the World Development Indicators

What makes a country a great place to start and grow a business? Among low-income economies across the world, only 29% have a single centralized website dedicated to providing regulatory information pertaining to international trade. In high-income economies, the same number stands at 67% . The World Bank’s new Business Ready (B-READY) project shines a light on this […]

Economy Business Featured News World

Explaining firm-level reactions to macro shocks

Understanding differences in firm responses to macroeconomic shocks is key for designing policy actions. This column identifies 67 macro shocks using ‘jump’ days in the US stock market over 2020-2022. It measures firm exposures using individual stock returns and, crucially, discussions of business risk factors in corporate filings. These exposures are largely uncorrelated for different […]