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Full print edition
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Food markets: How to store and sell more stuff
Poor places need more than seeds, fertiliser or even food science IF FOOD aid is epitomised by a single image, it is that of neat bags of grain, stamped with the Stars and Stripes and labelled a gift from the American people, being unloaded in some benighted place. In a long-established practice, US …
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The pros and cons of VAT: A last resort
Its advantages are oversold, but it is gaining adherentsLIBERALS oppose a value-added tax because it falls more heavily on the poor. Conservatives oppose it because it is a money machine. Larry Summers, Barack Obamas chief economic adviser, once predicted that America would get a VAT when the two si …
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Vehicle-scrapping subsidies
As the world economy tumbled into recession, most rich countries governments tried to prop up ailing carmakers by dishing out cash to drivers who scrapped an old vehicle to buy a new one. According to the OECD, Americas programme was the most generous on a purchasing-power basis, offering car-buyers …
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Vehicle telemetry: Calling all cars
Tapping remotely into a cars data systems provides lots of useful servicesIN THE early hours of the morning two men are robbed at gunpoint and ordered out of their Chevrolet Tahoe. The thief jumps in and roars off, but he does not get far. The vehicle is fitted with a telemetry system that provides …
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Conservation: In wolf's clothing
Wolves are being blamed for damage actually done by dogsFARMERS have never liked wolves. That is why wolves are rare where farmers are common. Fashion, though, is swinging round to the wolfs point of view in many places where town-dwellers are even more common than farmers and the big, bad wolf is j …
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Tuna fishing: Changing tides
The bluefin tuna is still being managed badly. A trade ban is on the cardsIN A world where wildlife is under increasing pressure, good management can mean the difference between survival and extinction. In the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, the management of bluefin tuna is in the hands o …
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Sex and pharmaceuticals: Arousing interest
The search continues for a pill that will lift a womans libidoBACK in the 1990s a drug firm called Pfizer thought it had a treatment for angina. Unfortunately, the new medicine failed its clinical trials. But a curious side-effect was seen in those trialsand Viagra was born. It has helped make Pfize …
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Award: Gulliver
Gulliver, our blog on business travel, won the award for innovation at this years Business Travel Journalism Awards. ...
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Corporate crime is on the rise: The rot spreads
A survey reveals that desperate times have led to illegal measuresTHE recession has taken its toll on morals as well as profits. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a consulting and accounting firm, has conducted a biennial survey of economic crime for the past ten years. The most recent, published on Nov …
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LNG expands in Australia: Explosive growth
Australia is becoming one of the worlds biggest exporters of gasWALLAROOS, bandicoots and other marsupials on Barrow Island off the north-west coast of Australia will watch curiously over coming months as workers start building a huge plant to liquefy natural gas there. The project, called Gorgon af …
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A spat among professional networks: Class war
Does local beat global in the professional-networking business?IN THE three-way fight between the biggest online professional networksAmericas LinkedIn, Frances Viadeo and Germanys Xingthis week the French contender scored a victory. Last year LinkedIn had struck a deal with Apec, Frances best-known …
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The psychology of warranties: Protection racket
If extended guarantees are overpriced, why are they so popular?CUSTOMERS tend to agonise over the relative merits of different models of electronic goods such as digital cameras or plasma televisions. But when they get to the till, many spend freely on something they barely think about at all: an ex …
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Counterfeit handsets proliferate in China : Talk is cheap
Chinese firms are making and exporting ever more suspect phonesCHINESE consumers appear fixated with Apples iconic iPhone. It draws throngs of eager buyers in Shanghais Xujiahui computer market. Similarly, at the Canton Trade Fair in October, vendors hawking familiar-looking silver and black slabs w …
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The global crackdown on corporate bribery: Ungreasing the wheels
Governments around the world are making life difficult for corrupt firmsIF EVER a clash was inevitable between one countrys commercial law and anothers business culture, it would be between Americas Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which seeks to punish firms that bribe government officials, an …
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Schumpeter: Remembering Drucker
Four years after his death, Peter Drucker remains the king of the management gurusIN THE normal run of things the management world is divided into dozens of mutually suspicious tribestheoreticians versus practitioners, publicity-hogging gurus versus retiring academics, supporters of scientific manag …
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University students abroad: And is there honey still for tea?
Luring foreign students is getting harderIN MEDIEVAL times, the choice was simple. A Christian man of means could enroll at one of a handful of universities, two of which were in England. Since then, continents have been discovered, everyone has got smarter and richer, and students have grown more d …
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Municipal Wi-Fi : Metro-net
Public wireless internet has had a tough time in America. Can Britain do better?ON A cold and drizzly autumn day, no one would mistake Swindon, a prosperous mid-sized town near Bristol, for northern California. But it does lie on the M4 corridor, a cluster of high-tech firms that includes several na …
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Reforming financial regulation: A one-trick bill
An exercise in bank-bashing which may just please consumersCRACKING down on financial services was always likely to be a highlight of the Queens Speech, which sets out the governments legislative priorities until the general election next year. With the cost of bailing out banks approaching GBP90 bi …
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The Conservatives' media policy: Nice guys may finish first
A shadow culture secretary begins to makes his markTHE Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has rarely been the frivolous sideshow suggested by its Whitehall nickname, the ministry of fun. It was a training ground for some of Labours brightest prospects, including James Purnell and Andy Bu …
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Financing Scottish start-ups: Better up north
New firms are finding funds in Scotland, despite the downturn. Why?THESE are tough times for venture capitalists. According to their trade association, the British Venture Capital Association (BVCA), investment in new and fledgling firms fell by 17% in 2008. The National Endowment for Science, Techn …
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