Chronic road congestion is a global epidemic, plaguing poor and rich countries alike. In dozens of cities around the world, from Bogota to Rome, from Moscow to Boston, from Toronto to Dhaka, from Sydney and Melbourne to Auckland and Wellington, the average motorist wastes more than a hundred hours every year idling behind the wheels in overcrowded routes. Read more

Chronic road congestion is a global epidemic, plaguing poor and rich countries alike. In dozens of cities around the world, from Bogota to Rome, from Moscow to Boston, from Toronto to Dhaka, from Sydney and Melbourne to Auckland and Wellington, the average motorist wastes more than a hundred hours every year idling behind the wheels in overcrowded routes. Read more

Congestion pricing, which charges drivers a user fee at peak times in overcrowded routes, can solve New Zealand’s shocking congestion woes, according to a new report launched this week by The New Zealand Initiative. Transport experts consistently agree congestion pricing is the single most-effective way to deal with chronic traffic bottlenecks while providing incentives to increase the use of public transport. Read more

Chronic road congestion is taking a toll on the mobility of goods, services and people in New Zealand's major urban centres, costing us more than a billion dollars every year on wasted hours idling in traffic. In Auckland, for instance, drivers spend an average 40 minutes of extra time delayed in traffic during their daily commute. Read more

Chronic road congestion is taking a toll on the mobility of goods, services and people in New Zealand’s major urban centres, costing us over a billion dollars every year on wasted hours idling in traffic. That means lower productivity growth (i.e. Read more

Last Thursday, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank pledged to offer on a daily basis at least $120 billion of cash injections in the short-term money market, up from the initial $75 billion supply agreed last month. Read more

“Our goal is to make sure the fight against poverty is based on scientific evidence,” Esther Duflo said shortly after becoming the second woman (and also the youngest economist, at 46) to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics. Duflo, along with her husband, Abhijit Banerjee, and Michael Kremer, received this year’s top economics award “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty”. Read more

A common saying about the various stages of social acceptance is: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win." A decade after Bitcoin was born, cryptocurrencies are about to enter the "fight" phase in their quest to become a mainstream means of payment. That is all due to Libra, a new global digital currency that a Facebook-led coalition plans to launch as early as next year. Read more

From cowry shells to metal coins, promissory notes, paper money and plastic, humans have adapted to different currency types over the millennia. Then the first Bitcoin was issued on 3 January 2009. Read more

Although at very early stages, the Democratic Party’s process to choose its presidential nominee has thrown up three leading figures, two completely opposite policy platforms, and one likely outcome. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders represent the progressive winds of change in the Democratic Party, proposing policies that, if implemented, would radically change long-standing institutions in America. Read more

Artificial intelligence will soon steal all our jobs, subjecting humans to the whims of a small and privileged capital-owner elite. At least, that is a recurring conspiracy in apocalyptical sci-fi movies or in the minds of modern luddites. Read more