Schools brief

Putting on weight
Governments can borrow more than was once believed

Hence only muted concern about borrowing to respond to covid-19

Hard work and black swans
Economists are turning to culture to explain wealth and poverty

As a result, the ideas of the earliest economists are being revised and improved

Buck up
Global trade’s dependence on dollars lessens its benefits

Policymakers around the world yearn to be free of the greenback’s grip

Hidden figures
Why does low unemployment no longer lift inflation?

The Phillips curve, the logic of which guides central banks today, has become oddly flat

Raising the floor
What harm do minimum wages do?

Three decades of research have led to a rethink

When big isn’t beautiful
What more should antitrust be doing?

The first of a series on areas where economists are rethinking the basics

Softening the blow
Climate adaptation policies are needed more than ever

People are already suffering from catastrophic losses as a result of extreme weather events like cyclone Amphan

Not-so-slow burn
The world’s energy system must be transformed completely

It has been changed before, but never as fast or fully as must happen now

Bad times
Damage from climate change will be widespread and sometimes surprising

It will go far beyond drought, melting ice sheets and crop failures

Projections of the future
How modelling articulates the science of climate change

From paper and pencil to the world’s fastest computers

The problematic politics of climate change
Why tackling global warming is a challenge without precedent

The first of six weekly briefs looks at the history of efforts to limit greenhouse-gas emissions