Economics

Where America’s gay couples enjoy legal equality
GAY couples in Washington, DC, have been enthusiastically lining up for marriage licences since March 3rd, when a state court overturned an attempt to ban same-sex weddings. The first ceremonies are set to take place on Tuesday March 9th. The District of Columbia joins five states where gay men [...]

Tumbling corporate-tax rates
CORPORATE-TAX rates in OECD countries have fallen remorselessly over the past 30 years. A survey by Robert Carroll of American University in Washington, DC, found that the top rate in OECD countries (excluding America) had dropped from 51% in the early 1980s to 32% by 2009. Competition among countries to attract business and [...]

Europe’s most valuable football fans
EUROPE’S most sucessful football club off the pitch, measured by revenues for the 2008-09 season, is Real Madrid. The Spanish side raked in just over €400m ($560m), according to a report by Deloitte. But the club that takes the most from its fans directly is Chelsea, also currently top of England’s [...]

A history of America in cigar consumption
THE smoking of a fat cigar is a sign that things are going well for Americans and shifts in cigar consumption are an accurate barometer of the national mood. Puffing on a stogie went into sharp decline after the Wall Street crash. President Kennedy signed the Cuban trade embargo [...]

Time spent in retirement has sharply increased
AS GOVERNMENTS try to tackle huge structural budget deficits, one means of attack is to delay paying state pensions by gently raising the official state-retirement age. Protests are expected in Spain on Tuesday February 23rd against an official plan to lift the retirement age by two years to 67. [...]

European countries that provide the best health care
THE private provision of health care comes in several forms across Europe. In Germany and the Netherlands it provides coverage for those not on government schemes; in Britain and Ireland it duplicates state-run systems; and in France it tops up cover from official programmes. But do private health [...]

Several countries will fail to make good on promises of aid this year
IN 2005, amid big anti-globalisation protests, leaders of the world’s main donor countries pledged to give more in foreign aid in 2010. Of the 21 members of the OECD “Development Assistance Committee”, all 15 European Union countries agreed to increase their net aid [...]

Foreign direct investment is on the wane
THE flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) fell by 39% in 2009 to just over $1 trillion, from a shade under $1.7 trillion in 2008, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development. All kinds of investment—equity capital, reinvested earnings and intra-company loans—were affected by the downturn. Rich [...]

The days of union power are long gone in America
STRIKES and employer-initiated lockouts in America last year were at their lowest since records began, according to new figures published by the Bureau of Labour Statistics. Only five work stoppages involved 1,000 or more workers last year. The number of working days lost, 124,000, was trifling [...]

Which countries file for most international patents?
THE number of applications for international patents fell by 4.5% in 2009 compared with the year before to 159,000 as companies in western countries cut back on R&D spending during the recession. Yet applications from east Asian economies, including Japan and South Korea, increased slightly, while those from China [...]