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Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Philip Hammond will present the government’s Budget on 8 March Tax is set to rise as a share of the UK’s income to its highest level since 1986, according to a think tank. Higher income from taxes and relatively low growth will combine to create this effect, according to the the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Austerity will continue into the 2020s, after Chancellor Philip Hammond’s decision to scrap a target of balancing the nation’s books, it said. The Treasury said it was committed to […]

Image copyright AFP Image caption M-Pesa now has about 20 million users in Kenya When 53 police officers in Afghanistan checked their phones in 2009, they felt sure there had been some mistake. They knew they were part of a pilot project to see if public sector salaries could be paid via a new mobile money service called M-Paisa. But had they somehow overlooked the detail that their participation brought a pay rise? Or had someone mistyped the amount to send them? The message said their salary was significantly larger […]

Image caption Emilie Telander (right) says she is more tired now she is back on eight-hour days Sweden has been experimenting with six-hour days, with workers getting the chance to work fewer hours on full pay, but now the most high-profile two-year trial has ended – has it all been too good to be true? Assistant nurse Emilie Telander, 26, cheers as one of the day patients at Svartedalen’s elderly care home in Gothenburg manages to roll a six in a game of Ludo. But her smile fades as she […]

Image copyright iStock Nearly 20 years ago, poor families in Coahuila state in Mexico were offered an unusual handout from a social programme called Piso Firme. It was not a place at school, a vaccination, food, or even money. It was $150 (£118) worth of ready-mixed concrete. Workers would drive concrete mixers through poor neighbourhoods, stop outside a home, and pour the porridge-like mixture through the door, right into the living room. They showed the occupants how to spread and smooth the gloop, and made sure they knew how long […]

Image copyright Getty Images Economists and economics reporters do like their charts and graphs. And if they were all forced to pick just one with which to tell the story of the Obama presidency, many would plump for the bar chart of “non-farm payrolls”. The non-farm payrolls report is simply the official measure of how many jobs the US economy has added (or lost) in the previous month. The release of this job tally, which happens at the same time, on the same day (the first Friday) of every single […]

Image copyright Bloomberg Image caption Farming has the most to gain – and lose from Brexit Of all UK industries, farming could lose or gain the most from Brexit. At worst Brexit could devastate the farming sector; on average 60% of farm incomes come in the form of EU subsidies. The report by Informa Agribusiness Intelligence estimates that without subsidies 90% of farms would collapse and land prices would crash. So far no one has said the subsidies will be taken away, or even that they will shrink. Indeed, the […]

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Most political commentators had not expected the UK to vote for Brexit… 2016 was the year that a decade of bubbling public discontent over the economy boiled over in two dramatic votes. Donald Trump defied almost all predictions to become President of the United States. A few months earlier, the UK had turned its back on the club of European nations it joined 43 years ago. The UK referendum result was a shattering blow to European Union leaders, who were only just beginning to […]

Image copyright Getty Images On 9 January 2007, one of the most influential entrepreneurs on the planet announced something new – a product that was to become the most profitable in history. It was, of course, the iPhone. There are many ways in which the iPhone has defined the modern economy. There is the sheer profitability of the thing, of course: there are only two or three companies in the world that make as much money as Apple does from the iPhone alone. There is the fact that it created […]

Image copyright Shutterstock Rudolf Diesel died in mysterious circumstances before he was able to capitalise on his ingenious invention. It was 22:00. Rudolf Diesel had retired to his cabin aboard the SS Dresden, travelling from Belgium across the English Channel. His nightclothes were laid out on his bed, but Diesel did not change into them. The inventor of the engine that bears his name was thinking about his heavy debts and the interest payments that he couldn’t afford. In his diary, that date – 29 September 1913 – was marked […]

Image caption Yilin tells the BBC’s Rob Young she has no idea how long it will be before she can afford a flat In an international restaurant in the centre of Beijing, diners are tucking into the self-service buffet of fish, noodles and dim sum. One of the waitresses, 24-year-old Yilin, is working a late shift. She moved to the capital from the nearby province of Hebei three years ago. Yilin tells me she is in Beijing, like the other seven million migrant workers here, to earn money and improve […]