Economy & Work
The Engines of Exchange
How labor, markets, and technology shape the rhythms of prosperity and precarity in a transforming world.
Quietly Fired by AI: The Disappearing Middle Manager
The middle manager was once the backbone of corporate life—interpreting strategy from above, relaying it to teams below, and smoothing…
The Second Shift Online: How Remote Work Reinvented Domestic Labor
When the pandemic sent millions of workers home, remote work was hailed as liberation. No more commutes, more flexibility, a…
The Weekend That Vanished: How Flexible Work Erased Time Off
It started as a perk: the freedom to log on from home, to shift hours around a school run, or…
The Quiet Default: When Nations Stop Paying in Silence
Sovereign defaults used to make headlines. Argentina in 2001, Greece in 2010—images of protests in the streets and bond spreads…
The Four-Day Workweek Experiment: Productivity Miracle or Mirage?
The four-day workweek is having a moment. From tech startups in California to government pilots in Europe, companies are asking:…
Transit Reparations: Redesigning Mobility for the Marginalized
In American cities, maps of public transit often double as maps of inequality. Bus routes thin out in low-income neighborhoods….
The Quiet Bank Runs of the Digital Age
Bank runs used to be noisy affairs. Crowds lined up outside branches, TV cameras captured the panic, and policymakers scrambled…
The Middle-Office Meltdown: How AI Is Erasing the ‘Glue Jobs’ That Hold Companies Together
When people imagine automation, they usually picture robots replacing factory workers, or algorithms taking over call centers. The popular storyline…
Stablecoins as Shadow Reserves: Finance Without a Safety Net
In the long history of money, reserves have been the ballast that steadies the system. Central banks hold gold or…
Why the Gig Economy’s Second Act Could Be Worse Than the First
When the gig economy burst onto the scene in the early 2010s, it came wrapped in the language of freedom….
The Quiet Collapse of Offshore Banking Havens
For decades, offshore banking havens—those small jurisdictions where capital could slip in quietly and taxes barely whispered its name—were fixtures…
The Currency Cold War: Competing for the World’s Reserve
In the marble halls of central banks and the quiet meeting rooms of finance ministries, a high-stakes contest is unfolding….