Global Economy

How GCC Smelters Can Continue Growing Profitably

Race Against the Machine: Andrew McAfee at TEDxBoston

Ukraine crisis: Gas prices leap on Russia’s Crimea move

“Gazprom’s Nord Stream pipeline has an additional 32bn cubic metres of unused capacity, based on last year’s operating levels, meaning that half of Ukraine’s gas volumes could be substituted into this pipeline,” wrote analysts at Bernstein Research in a report.

He called upon the EU to pressure Slovakia’s gas transit pipeline operator into sanctioning so-called reverse gas transit flow schemes, allowing Ukraine, which relies heavily on Russian fuel imports, to diversify by importing European market gas.

The Growing Divide Within Developing Economies

How to Get a Job at Google

noted that Google had determined that “G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless. ... We found that they don’t predict anything.”

“Good grades certainly don’t hurt.” Many jobs at Google require math, computing and coding skills, so if your good grades truly reflect skills in those areas that you can apply, it would be an advantage.

How to Get a Job at Google, Part 2

“I was on campus speaking to a student who was a computer science and math double major, who was thinking of shifting to an economics major because the computer science courses were too difficult. I told that student they are much better off being a B student in computer science than an A+ student in English because it signals a rigor in your thinking and a more challenging course load. That student will be one of our interns this summer.”

“She was moving out of a major where she would have been differentiated in the labor force” and “out of classes that would have made her better qualified for other jobs because of the training.”

Switching Names to Save on Taxes

Russia Steps Up Economic Pressure on Kiev

Russia is now asking close to $500 for 1,000 cubic meters of gas, the standard unit for gas trade in Europe, which is a price about a third higher than what Russia’s gas company, Gazprom, charges clients elsewhere. Russia says the increase is justified because it seized control of the Crimean Peninsula, where its Black Sea naval fleet is stationed, ending the need to pay rent for the Sevastopol base. The base rent had been paid in the form of a $100 per 1,000 cubic meter discount on natural gas for Ukraine’s national energy company, Naftogaz.

Mr. Yatsenyuk raised the pressing need to build an interconnector pipe allowing for a so-called reverse flow from the European Union into the Ukrainian gas system. “We need reverse flows of gas from the European Union to support Ukraine’s energy security,” Mr. Yatsenyuk said.

The Global Economy’s Tale Risks

Fluctuations in the world’s economies are largely due to the stories we hear and tell about them. These popular, emotionally relevant narratives sometimes inspire us to go out and spend, start businesses, build new factories and office buildings, and hire employees; at other times, they put fear in our hearts and impel us to sit tight, save our resources, curtail spending, and reduce risk. They either stimulate our “animal spirits” or muffle them.

The output gap for the world’s major advanced economies, as calculated by the IMF, remains disappointing, at -3.2% in 2013, which is less than half-way back to normal from 2009, the worst year of the global financial crisis, when the gap was -5.3%.

Soaring Prices Fuel Frustrations Among Weary Argentines

Coal to the Rescue, but Maybe Not Next Winter

What exactly is an entrepreneur?

Schumpeterians distinguish between “replicative” entrepreneurs (who set up small businesses much like other small businesses) and “innovative” entrepreneurs (who upset and disorganise the existing way of doing things). They also distinguish between “small businesses” and “high-growth businesses” (most small businesses stay small). Both sorts have an important role in a successful economy

In a new paper Magnus Henrekson and Tino Sanandaji argue that the number of self-made billionaires a country produces provides a much better measure of its entrepreneurial vigour than the number of small businesses.

Secret History of Silicon Valley

Nightline Special Edition - iFactory: Inside Apple (Foxconn)

The actual underwater cables that connect the Internet globally

Incomes in sub-Saharan Africa

But sub-Saharan Africa shifted to the left. Whereas in 1993 about 25% of the world’s poorest 5% lived in sub-Saharan Africa, by 2008 it was nearly 60%. 

Squaring the Eurozone’s Vicious Circle

Although eurozone sovereign-debt markets have stabilized, the share of sovereign bonds held by domestic banks has increased sharply in the last few months, accounting for more than half of the net increase in debt emissions in some countries. In Spain and Italy, sovereign bonds now account for roughly 10% of banks’ total assets

What accounts for banks’ growing bias toward their own country’s sovereign debt?

Interactive: Key geography, demographics in Ukraine