Due to concerns about the spread of coronavirus, representatives from athletic leagues across the globe have announced that they will temporarily halt play. On Wednesday, the National Basketball Association was the first to suspend competition after a player on the Utah Jazz tested positively for…
Last week (see From the News to The Classroom blog site) we looked at how fears over coronavirus have caused major events to cancel and governments to restrict travel. Since then, organizers of South By Southwest have called off the festival while Italy has expanded…
On March 11th, 2020, the World Health Organization officially classified coronavirus as a pandemic, causing the Dow Jones Industrial Average to plummet by nearly 1,500 points. This rapid decline in the market has reversed more than a decade of expansion for the U.S. economy while…
This video explores the role of China as the factory floor for the world and an important market for many companies. China’s ascent to the number two economy in the world has been rapid and many companies now depend on the country both for production and sales.
This video explores the impact of the U.S. trade war with China on California’s winemakers. In response to tariffs imposed by the United States, China levied a series of tariffs on wine imported from California, pushing the price of California wines to as much as 60 percent more than the price prior to the tariffs. For California’s winemakers, the situation is becoming dire.
This video explores the impact of the novel coronavirus on South Africa’s lobster industry. Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 in China, South Africa exported 80 to 90 percent of its lobster to China. Following the health crisis and the mandatory quarantine of so many people in China, demand for lobster has all but stopped, putting extreme pressure on South Africa’s fishing industry.
The recent development in the payments industry, namely the rise of Fintech companies, has created an opportunity to revisit the economics of the payment system and the puzzling nature of profit in this industry. Major banks, credit card companies, and financial institutions have long controlled payments, but their dominance looks increasingly shaky.
U.S. labor department’s latest statistics, published on January 10th, suggested that the unemployment rate remained at a 50-year low of 3.5 percent. However, the same report indicates thatU.S. wage growth dropped below 3 percent. These two developments are in sharp contrast with the premises of standard macroeconomic…
