Green is the new black

BEING a commuter in much of South-East Asia requires reserves of patience. In city after city, bar Singapore, jams confine people in taxis for hours, or force them onto the back of motorbikes that weave precariously through traffic. These qualities of perseverance are not shared by Uber, an American ride-hailing firm. This week it announced that after five years and $700m of investment in the region, it would be selling its business there to Grab, a Malaysian startup based in Singapore.

South-East Asia is not known for giving birth to Silicon Valley-beating tech companies, says Ming Maa, Grab’s president. “This acquisition shows that this is changing,” he boasts. Under the terms of the deal Uber will take a 27.5% stake in Grab, which is valued at $6bn. The deal makes Grab, which started in 2012 after its two co-founders met at Harvard Business School, the dominant ride-sharing app in a market of 634m people. It operates in 191 cities across...Continue reading
First published here: http://j.mp/2GRwOpR

G-whizz

JAWS dropped when earlier this year a White House memo argued that the American government should build and run its own 5G mobile network. The reason given was national security. The memo cited Huawei, a Chinese maker of telecoms gear, as a strategic threat. Many assailed the idea of such massive state intervention and the idea was quickly squashed. South of the border, Mexico is experimenting with something that could be a more sensible version of the American officials’ suggested venture: a wholesale mobile network.

Red Compartida (“shared network” in Spanish) went live on March 21st. The motive behind one of the world’s most ambitious telecommunications projects is not national security. Rather, Mexico is trying to pull off a triple feat of expanding mobile coverage, lowering prices and creating a viable business environment for 5G, the next generation of wireless mobile internet.

The project is a $7.2bn public-private partnership that is part of the country’s 2014 telecommunications...Continue reading
First published here: http://j.mp/2E3l7t9

IN BUILDING the world’s largest advertising company over the past 30 years, Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, has weathered two recessions and survived a global financial crisis. His firm nearly went bankrupt in the early 1990s. Now he must make his hardest advertising pitch yet, to convince the corporate world that image-making agencies like his are not dinosaurs on the brink of extinction.

The world’s advertising giants are struggling to adapt to a landscape suddenly dominated by the duopoly of Google and Facebook. Some of their biggest clients, such as Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Unilever, are also being disrupted, in their case by smaller online brands and by Amazon. They are cutting spending on advertising services, and also building more capabilities in-house. Consultancies with digital expertise such as Deloitte and Accenture are competing with agencies, arguing that they know how to connect with consumers better, and more cheaply, using data, machine learning and app...Continue reading
First published here: http://j.mp/2GTk6qH

AMERICA’S president claims to view China as a friend. But the friendship is going through a rocky patch, to say the least. America’s trade deficit with China, “the largest deficit in the history of our world”, is “out of control”, Donald Trump groused on March 22nd. “A tremendous intellectual-property theft situation” also irks him. And so, after laying out his concerns, he announced plans for some tough love. Litigation against China at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), investment restrictions and tariffs are all on the cards.

The announcement early in March of tariffs on steel and aluminium imports to America was chaotic, even prompting the resignation of Gary Cohn, the head of Mr Trump’s National Economic Council. The latest targeting of China, by contrast, is the culmination of months of planning and commands broader support. It was masterminded by Robert Lighthizer, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and a seasoned trade lawyer. As a deputy USTR under Ronald Reagan...Continue reading
First published here: http://j.mp/2E2Xb9r

CHINA is the stated adversary in Donald Trump’s incipient trade war. But 30% of the value of the goods China exports to America is added elsewhere. If the row escalates, countries entwined in Chinese supply chains will suffer.

In absolute terms, Japanese suppliers will fare worst. Japan is the country that exports most to firms in China that export onwards to America. But relative to economic size, such suppliers are a bigger part of several small, open Asian economies (see chart). Between 1% and 2% of some countries’ total output is shipped first to China and then on to America. If Chinese exports to America were to fall by 10%—an extreme but not impossible scenario—it could...Continue reading
First published here: http://j.mp/2GRkW7q

JUST how bad have the past four decades been for ordinary Americans? One much-cited figure suggests they have been pretty bad. The Census Bureau estimates that for the median household, halfway along the distribution, income has barely grown in real terms since 1979. But a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a non-partisan think-tank, gives a cheerier rise of 51% for median household income between 1979 and 2014. Which is nearer to reality?

The gap between the two is accounted for by three methodological differences (see chart). First, the CBO takes demography into account. This seems sensible: more Americans are living alone and American women are having fewer...Continue reading
First published here: http://j.mp/2IdZjh7

A POPULAR riff doing the rounds in tech circles is that, if data are the new oil, then Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica fiasco is the equivalent of Deepwater Horizon. That was the name of an oil platform that exploded in April 2010, coating the Gulf of Mexico and the reputation of BP, the firm responsible, in a toxic slick.

Yet just how damaging are “Deepwater” incidents for firms and their owners over time? Perhaps they cease to matter after the initial burst of media purgatory, grovelling by executives, celebratory cant from competitors and politicians’ grandstanding.

To answer this, Schumpeter has looked at eight of the most notable corporate crises since 2010, including those at Uber and Wells Fargo. The evidence shows that these episodes were deeply injurious to the companies’ financial health, with the median firm losing 30% of its value since its crisis, when compared with a basket of its peers. Facebook should beware.

When a scandal first breaks, executives at the...Continue reading
First published here: http://j.mp/2GXcbJf

TRADITIONALLY, to count as an oil power a country had to be a big producer of the black stuff. China is the world’s biggest importer but still wants to break into that exclusive club. On March 26th it launched a crude futures contract in a bid to gain more clout in the global market. Some think that, if successful, the yuan could start to displace the dollar in oil trading. For now, though, that is fanciful.

A previous attempt by China to introduce oil futures, in the early 1990s, failed because of unstable pricing. This time regulators prepared methodically. To ward off speculators, notorious in Chinese markets, they made the storage of oil very expensive. Volumes were light in the first few days of trading—less than a tenth of the averages for similar contracts in New York and London. But all went smoothly. It was a good, if modest, start.

China has two goals. The basic one is to help its companies hedge against volatility. Chinese refiners and traders have struggled to...Continue reading
First published here: http://j.mp/2IcUwMG

CYNTHIA NIXON is the latest celebrity to run for office in America; the “Sex and the City” star is trying to be governor of New York. If she succeeds, she will follow in a long line of celebrities-turned-politicians including Sonny Bono, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jesse Ventura and most notably, Presidents Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.

This may not be a uniquely American phenomenon. Beppe Grillo, a comedian, launched the Five Star movement, now Italy's biggest party. Silvio Berlusconi cultivated the celebrity style. George Weah, a footballer, has just been elected president of Liberia. Joseph Estrada, a movie star, was president of the Philippines.

Even conventional politicians are expected to show a bit of star quality. Al Gore failed in his run for president in part because his public demeanour was seen as wooden and dull (it was said he reminded women of their first husbands). The attempts in last year’s election campaign to create...Continue reading
First published here: http://j.mp/2pJSHAe

“FASTEN your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.” Those famous lines of Bette Davis in “All About Eve” may turn out to be the motto for the markets in 2018. After the “volatility vortex” in February, sparked by concerns about inflation, markets have thrown a “tariff tantrum” after President Donald Trump sparked fears of a trade war with China.

In February stocks sank on heavy hints of American levies on imported steel and aluminium. The prospect of trade measures against China, signalled on March 22nd, again hit shares. Then reports that China and America were making progress in trade talks caused the S&P 500 index to rise by 2.7% on March 26th, its best day since August 2015. It promptly fell again by 1.7% the next day (see chart).

Further volatility seems likely, not least after the appointment of John Bolton, an ultra-hawk on foreign policy, as Mr Trump’s national security adviser. That raises the possibility of increased tension with North Korea, despite the...Continue reading
First published here: http://j.mp/2pNX1Oa