Apr 7th 2011, 17:38 by The Economist online
Who's paying for the euro-area bail-out?
PORTUGAL’S bail-out means another stage in Europe’s debt crisis and another call on non-European coffers. The total €865 billion ($1.2 trillion) pot available for euro-area rescues looks enormous, more than enough to cope with Greece, Ireland and Portugal’s anticipated needs besides. Almost half of that comes from the European Financial Stability Facility, a €440 billion euro-zone fund whose major contributors are Germany, France and Italy. But the EFSF’s effective lending capacity is only €250 billion, because only six of its 17 members have a AAA credit rating. European leaders have pledged to bring the fund’s actual firepower up to €440 billion by the summer but in the meantime the IMF has more cash on hand, at €280 billion. If all that money were used (a very big if), America would end up lending indebted euro-zone nations €50 billion.
Apr 7th 2011, 17:34 by The Economist online
Catastrophe in Japan, as told through the graphics that have
accompanied The Economist's coverage.
MORE INTERACTIVE GRAPHICS:
• Explore our interactive guide to nuclear power
around the world.
Apr 7th 2011, 17:29 by The Economist online
Revolution in the Arab world, as told through the graphics that have
accompanied The Economist's coverage.
MORE INTERACTIVE GRAPHICS:
• Explore our map and guide to all the Arab League countries.
• Make your own predictions about the volatility of Middle East countries using our shoe-thrower's index.
• Our infographic explains the diplomacy of influential
players behind military action in Libya.
Apr 6th 2011, 15:25 by The Economist online
Which countries are most in favour of the free market?
FAITH in the free market is at a low in the world's biggest free-market economy. In 2010, 59% of Americans asked by GlobeScan, a polling firm, agreed "strongly" or "somewhat" that the free market was the best system for the world's future. This has fallen sharply from 80% when the question was first asked in 2002. And among poorer Americans under $20,000, faith in capitalism fell from 76% to 44% in just one year. Of the 25 countries polled, support for the free market is now greatest in Germany, just ahead of Brazil and communist China, both of which have seen strong growth in recent years. Indians are less enthusiastic despite recent gains in growth. Italy shows a surprising fondness for markets for a place that is uncompetitive in many sectors. In France under a third of people believe that the free market is the best option, down from 42% in 2002.
Apr 6th 2011, 14:25 by The Economist online
THE fear that Greece's sovereign-debt crisis might presage similar episodes elsewhere in the euro zone has been borne out. In November, Ireland joined Greece in intensive care, becoming the first euro-zone country to apply for funds from the rescue scheme agreed in May 2010 in concert with the IMF. Sovereign-bond spreads (the extra interest compared with bonds issued by Germany, the safest credit) have risen sharply in other euro-zone countries, notably Portugal, but also in Spain. Promises to tackle budget deficits through public spending cuts and tax increases have offered little reassurance to bondholders, who know that austerity will hold back already-weak GDP growth.
The interactive graphic above (updated April 6th 2011) illustrates some of the problems that the European economy faces. GDP picked up in most countries through 2010 but there were marked differences in performance. Germany was especially sprightly: its economy rose by almost 4% in the year to the third quarter. But GDP in Greece has crashed under the weight of austerity; Ireland has yet to emerge convincingly from a deep recession; and Spain’s economy is barely growing. It is notable that GDP countries outside the euro, such as Britain, Poland and especially Sweden grew at a faster rate than the euro-zone average in the year to the third quarter.
In many countries unemployment has not gone up by as much as one might expect given the depth of the crisis. Germany now has lower unemployment than before the crisis, thanks in part to a short-time working scheme and flexible time arrangements in its manufacturing sector. The worst-affected countries include Ireland and Spain, where a collapse in construction has swollen the dole queues. Britain has fared better because its tight planning laws limited the growth of its construction sector during the global housing boom.
Weak growth and high unemployment spell particular trouble for countries that already have high levels of public debt. That explains why Greece was first to lose the confidence of the markets with a public-debt-to-GDP ratio of 127% and a budget deficit of 15.5%. In 2009, it was the euro zone's outlier country. Both Ireland and Spain had low public debt coming into the crisis, but a combination of recession and big housing busts blew a hole in their tax revenues. Ireland was, in the end, undone by fears that the state could not backstop its banks. Spain is now scrambling to avoid a similar fate. Others are pruning before the markets exert real pressure: Britain's debt has the longest maturity of any EU member but it is still aiming to get its finances in order within four brutal years.
AUDIO: Our correspondents on why struggling euro-zone economies should restructure their debt sooner rather than later.
Apr 5th 2011, 12:32 by The Economist online
Many Western leaders are getting younger even as their countries age
THE developed world is getting older. But oddly enough, its leaders are getting younger. The chart shows the average age of the leaders of four Western countries (America, Britain, France and Germany) since 1950. In the 1950s, voters were happy to elect venerable leaders like Winston Churchill and Konrad Adenauer. The election of Jack Kennedy was the first sign that the cult of youth was flowering but then came the dominance of Ronald Reagan and Francois Mitterrand in the 1980s. Now the West’s leaders, including 40-somethings Barack Obama (just) and David Cameron, have never been younger. If the trend continues, the leaders will end up younger than the average citizen.
Apr 4th 2011, 14:23 by The Economist online
Where have India's baby girls gone?
NEW data from the 2011 Indian census show that there are now 914 girls aged 0-6 years old for every 1,000 boys of the same age, or 75.8m girls and 82.9m boys. A cultural preference for sons and the increasing availability of prenatal screening to determine a baby's sex have helped contribute to a worsening in the ratio (from 927 in the previous census in 2001), which has been deteriorating rapidly even as the ratio for the population as a whole has improved. A decline was recorded in 28 of the country's 35 states and territories, among which there is wide variation; from 830 in the northern state of Haryana to 973 Meghalaya in the east. And such imbalances are not confined to India. Last year the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences warned that by 2020 one in five young Chinese men would be unable to find a bride because of the dearth of young women.
Apr 4th 2011, 13:25 by The Economist online
AMERICA as a whole has just endured its sharpest recession since the 1930s, and the recovery is still fragile. But as our interactive map (updated April 4th 2011) reveals, the pain has been spread very unevenly. The hardest-hit state, Nevada, has an unemployment rate more than three times as bad as that of North Dakota, the state that has done best on that measure. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, there is a close inverse correlation between growth rates and unemployment.
But what of politics? On the whole, the states with the worst unemployment levels tend to vote Democratic, and those with the best are in the Republican camp. Politicians will argue furiously about which way round the arrow of causation ought to run.
Interestingly, America's ethnic composition seems to have little consistent economic impact. States with large numbers of Hispanics (by far the fastest-growing ethnic group in America) include low-growth/high-unemployment states like California and Nevada, as well as good performers like Texas and New Mexico.
Apr 1st 2011, 11:32 by The Economist online
A study casts new light on the world's most important bilateral relationship
NEARLY three-quarters of Americans wish China would "just hurry up and overtake America already," according to a new survey by The Economist Simulation Unit, published on April 1st. Constant worrying about exactly when the superpower will fall into second place is causing anxiety throughout American society, the survey found. "Will it be 2015? 2020? 2025? I wish it would just happen, and then we could all stop agonising about it and get back to dentistry," said Adam Barnes, a dentist from Iowa. The report examines in detail the relationship between the two countries and finds that in some important fields, China has already surpassed America. A summary of the findings is presented below.
Mar 30th 2011, 13:32 by The Economist online
America's housing market is in the doldrums
IF AMERICA'S housing market acts as a bellwether for its economy, then new monthly data released on March 29th by Standard & Poor's makes for particularly glum reading. The ten-city composite index fell by an annual rate of 2.7% in January—it is now over 30% below its April 2006 peak. House prices in 12 of the 20 cities tracked by Standard & Poor's fell in January and only two cities, Washington and San Diego, recorded gains on the previous year. However, as discussed in our Free Exchange blog, the data could include sales that may have gone under contract as early as September but have yet to complete, and since then a second dose of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve has strengthened the outlook for the US economy.
Explore and compare global housing data with our interactive house-price tool.
Mar 29th 2011, 15:14 by The Economist online
The countries with the biggest share of academic citations
SCIENCE is becoming bigger and more global. That, at least, is the conclusion of a report published by Britain's Royal Society, the world’s oldest scientific academy. Emerging scientific nations are gaining influence, as measured by how often their researchers get cited in peer-reviewed journals. China and Spain, with 4% and 3% of global citations in 2004-2008, respectively, pushed Australia and Switzerland out of the top ten for the previous five years. Countries like the United States and Britain retain the the most clout, though. Together they still account for 38% of global citations in 2004-2008, down from 45% in the previous five years. Boffins the world over are also citing more eagerly, on average, than they used to. Citations grew by 55% between 1999-2003 and 2004-2008. Meanwhile, the number of published papers grew by just 33%. The growth in citations could be partly down to an increase in the proportion of published papers that are the product of international collaboration to 35% of the total, up from 25% 15 years ago.
Mar 28th 2011, 15:14 by The Economist online
Where people seek asylum, and where they are from
LAST year 358,800 applications for asylum were lodged in 44 of the world's richer countries, according to a report by the UN High Commissoner for Refugees published on March 28th. This has fallen by around half since 2001. The largest number of claims came from Serbians, for whom restrictions on travel to the European Union without a visa were lifted in December 2009. This resulted in a rise in applications from 18,800 in 2009 to nearly 29,000 last year. Meanwhile, claims from citizens of neighbouring Macedonia increased by 600% to 6,351. Applications made by people from Afghanistan and Iraq fell by 9% and 18%. Over 11,000 applications for asylum in America last year were made by Chinese citizens, by far the biggest claimant nationality in the United States.
Mar 24th 2011, 18:31 by The Economist online
FRANCE and Britain led the diplomatic push for military action against Libya. The Arab League's vote, on March 12th, to call on the United Nations to enforce a no-fly zone was crucial in securing international legitimacy. The Americans were initially hesitant but were eventually won around. So much is familiar to observers of the unfolding Libya story. But what of the other diplomatic players? Why did China and Russia, both of whom are traditionally hostile to military intervention in sovereign affairs, abstain in the UN Security Council vote authorising action? Why did David Cameron work so hard to bring the South Africans on board? And just what are the Turks up to? Our interactive map, below, explains.
Browse The Economist's coverage of unrest in the Middle East with our interactive graphics carousel.
Mar 24th 2011, 15:05 by The Economist online
An interactive map of current and future nuclear-power producers
THE appetite for nuclear power varies strongly from country to country. Some treat it as a side dish, some as a staple part of the diet, and a very few—France, Lithuania—sup on it almost to the exclusion of all else. Until the crisis at Japan's Fukushima plant that started on March 11th, the biggest change foreseen in these habits was a large increase among Asian countries. China, as well as having 77 reactors planned and under construction, has 110 more proposed, according to the World Nuclear Association. Delivering all that would make it far and away the largest producer of nuclear electricity in the world. As our briefing on nuclear power explains, those plans may now slow, and there is obviously a large question mark over Japan's new reactors. But with the West already shoon nuclear wing a diminished appetite for nuclear power, it seems likely to become an ever more Asian speciality. Our maps show the 30 countries that currently use nuclear power, as well 18 others that are planning to do so.
Mar 23rd 2011, 16:03 by The Economist online
The world's biggest weapons suppliers
THREE-QUARTERS of global arms exports were supplied by just five countries between 2006 and 2010, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a think-tank. The volume of such exports rose by almost 25% compared with 2001-05. SIPRI counts the deliveries of large conventional weapons, each of which is assigned a value according to cost, strategic importance and other criteria. The two biggest importers of arms over the past five years, India and China, both bought over 80% of their weapons from Russia. The third- and fourth-biggest importers, South Korea and Pakistan, favoured American-made items.
Mar 22nd 2011, 17:59 by The Economist online
The countries most dependent on exports to Japan
IN YESTERDAY'S daily chart we looked at the possible cost to Japan's economy of this month's Tohoku earthquake. The impact will not be confined to Japan, however. The damage to ports, railways, power stations, refineries and consumer confidence has already interrupted the country's imports, with some coal shipments diverted elsewhere. Which economies are most exposed to a slowdown in Japan? Brunei's exports to the country account for over 28% of its GDP. But like those of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, Brunei's exports comprise oil and natural gas, which will eventually benefit from the damage to Japan's nuclear industry. Malaysia's timber exports may also enjoy a boost from reconstruction. More exposed are Singapore and Thailand. In addition to their sizeable exports to Japan, they rely on imports of its components for the smooth running of their manufacturing industries.
Mar 21st 2011, 17:30 by The Economist online
The Japanese earthquake could be the costliest disaster ever
JAPAN is still reeling from the earthquake and tsunami that struck its north-east coast on March 11th, with the government struggling to contain a nuclear disaster and around 10,000 people still unaccounted for. Provisional estimates released today by the World Bank put the economic damage resulting from the disaster at as much as $235 billion, around 4% of GDP. That figure would make this disaster the costliest since comparable records began in 1965. The Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, which caused some 250,000 deaths, does not feature on this chart. Economic losses there amounted to only $14 billion in today’s prices, partly because of low property and land values in the affected areas.
Mar 16th 2011, 16:17 by The Economist online
Japan’s earthquake has a devastating effect on the stockmarket too
UNCERTAINTY over the extent of the damage caused by the earthquake in north-east Japan on March 11th, and the associated radiation leak at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power station 140 miles (225km) north of Toyko, has made trading on Japan’s stockmarket an eventful affair. The Nikkei 225 index fell 17.5% in the three trading days following the catastrophe, wiping some ¥37 trillion ($458 billion) off equities. This compares unfavourably with market reactions to other disasters. Once the New York Stock Exchange had reopened six days after the September 11th terrorist attacks, the S&P 500 fell by 11.6% over five trading days, but after a further 14 days it had recovered to its pre-disaster level. After Japan’s last severe earthquake in the city of Kobe in 1995 the Nikkei 225 fell by 7.6% over the next four trading days, but it did not recover to its pre-earthquake level for another 11 months. The Nikkei 225 regained some lost ground today, closing up 5.7%. The Japanese will be hoping for the same bounce back in their own fortunes.
Mar 15th 2011, 15:06 by The Economist online
The world's largest nuclear-energy producers
THE explosions and meltdown fears at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear-power plant that followed Friday’s earthquake have increased concerns in Japan about the safety of nuclear power. The country is not well placed to move away from it though, with only America and France producing more electricity from nuclear sources. Germany, which yesterday suspended a deal to delay closing its ageing nuclear plants, is the world’s sixth-largest producer. In percentage terms the story is rather different. Nuclear power in Japan accounts for just 29% of total domestic power production, putting Japan 15th on the list of the most nuclear-reliant countries. It ranks far below France, where nuclear power makes up three-quarters of electricity production.
Build your own revolutionary index
Mar 14th 2011, 14:06 by The Economist online
An interactive index of unrest in the Arab world
SINCE our "shoe-thrower’s index" was published on February 9th, Bahrain and, most prominently, Libya, have continued to witness further unrest and demand for regime change. The index attempted to predict where trouble across the Arab world was most likely to arise by applying a subjective weighting to factors such as the length of time the leader had been in power, GDP per person and the level of democracy. We have added two further indicators that were not included in the original—the adult literacy rate and the percentage of people who are internet users—and made the whole index interactive. You can apply your own weightings to each variable to see which country may be the next to experience political upheaval. The index is presented with the weights used in the original version, but differs slightly from that version as some figures have been updated.
Mar 11th 2011, 18:19 by The Economist online
ON Friday March 11th a huge earthquake of magnitude 8.9 struck off the north-east coast of Japan's main island, triggering a tsunami seven metres tall. The earthquake is thought to be the largest ever to hit Japan, and the fifth-largest since decent records began in 1900. According to the US Geological Survey, 15 of the 16 largest earthquakes occurred in and around the Pacific "Ring of Fire". Fortunately, many of the biggest, known as "megathrust" earthquakes, as one tectonic plate is forced under another, have occurred in sparsely populated areas.
Mar 11th 2011, 15:19 by The Economist online
The gap between the richest and the poorest regions is particularly large in Britain
REGIONAL inequality, as measured by the differences in GDP per person across a country, is often huge. Such comparisons can be tricky, as the areas are not always similar in terms of size and cost of living. Nevertheless, in Britain, GDP per person in the richest area is over five times the national average and nearly ten times that of the poorest area. And the richest state in America, the District of Columbia (granted statehood in these statistics), has a GDP per person five times higher than the poorest state, Mississippi. In an analysis of seven countries by The Economist, Italy was found to have the lowest level of regional inequality, perhaps due to large fiscal transfers to the Mezzogiorno in the south. Meanwhile, China's phenomenal growth means that on a purchasing-power-parity basis, the municipality of Shanghai has a higher GDP per head than a quarter of the regions in Britain and Italy and one-tenth of those in Germany.
See full article here
Mar 11th 2011, 14:46 by G.D.
LIBYA is one of the driest countries in the world, with only the narrow coastal region (less than 5% of the country) getting more than 100mm of rain a year. In 1953 the search for oil in the deserts of southern Libya led to the discovery not only of significant oil reserves, but also vast quantities of freshwater trapped in aquifers under the Libyan desert. The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System, the world’s largest, is located under the eastern part of the Sahara desert and spans the political boundaries of Libya, Chad, Sudan and Egypt. It covers an area of just over 2m square km and contains an estimated 150,000 cubic km of groundwater.
Much of Libya's water supply used to come from expensive desalination plants on the coast, which left little water to irrigate land—vital in this largely desert country. Moreover the coastal aquifer historically used in Tripoli was becoming contaminated and its salinity was increasing. So in 1983 a massive engineering project, known as the Great Man-Made River Project, was created to supply water from desert aquifers to the coastal region for the majority of the Libya’s 6.3m people and to expand agriculture through irrigation.
The project, of which three phases out of five have been completed, is intended to supply 6.5m cubic metres of water a day through 4,000km of pipelines from 1,100 wells via five reservoirs at an estimated cost of $25 billion. The cost of this non-renewable water is approximately one tenth of the cost of desalinated water.
Mar 10th 2011, 17:00 by The Economist online
Crowdsourced results for the price of a Big Mac
A MONTH ago we asked if you could tell us how much a Big Mac costs where you live, to compile a crowdsourced version of our Big Mac index. Although readers in many countries around the world responded (thank you!), there was not, unfortunately, enough data for each country to achieve this aim. Crowdsourcing projects such as Galaxy Zoo, Old Weather or Planet Hunters require several volunteers to give the same answer to ensure it is accurate. What was clear, however, was the price variations within countries (McDonald's provides us with a single average price for each country). The maps below show the price of a Big Mac, in local currency, across America and China. The most expensive burger in America was reported in New York, at $4.34. The cheapest burger was found in California, at $2.99 (though it was not stated if this included tax). Prices in the state ranged from $2.99-3.99, according to our readers. Big Mac price differences were even more pronounced in Shanghai: the full range of burger prices across China (10.5-15 yuan) could be found within that one province. Only one person, however, reported a price of 10.5 yuan; the most common was 15 yuan. For more on regional economic variations in America and China, see our interactive maps of US states and Chinese provinces.
Mar 9th 2011, 16:48 by S.P. | PARIS
SELDOM has an opinion poll sent such shock waves through the French political establishment. Two polls published this week, by the same polling agency, suggest that Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front and successor to Jean-Marie, her blustering father, would beat Nicolas Sarkozy in the first round of a presidential election. This holds no matter which of three potential Socialist candidates—Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Martine Aubry, or François Hollande—were running. (The Socialists will choose a candidate later this year.) If Mr Strauss-Kahn, currently head of the IMF, stood, Mr Sarkozy would fail even to make it into the second-round run-off—a reverse of France’s 2002 presidential-election shock, when Mr Le Pen beat the Socialist candidate, Lionel Jospin, into the run-off.
Both left and right have tried to dismiss the polls as outliers: they were conducted online; they were corrected to account for coy National Front voters; and France’s 2012 presidential election is still over a year away. All of which are valid caveats. Yet this is to miss the underlying trend, as our chart shows (it excludes other parties and candidates, and, for consistency, shows only the results when Mr Strauss-Kahn is named as the Socialist candidate). Since taking over the party in January, Ms Le Pen has been on a steady rise, carried in part by her exploitation of new French fears about immigration following the Arab uprisings. Mainstream politicians may argue that a single poll by itself means little. But the revival of the National Front under Ms Le Pen looks all too real.
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On this blog we publish a new chart or map every working day, highlight our interactive-data features and provide links to interesting sources of data around the web.
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