Finance & economics | Only disconnect

The difficulties of policing remote work

Why bans on after-hours calls may not work

AS OFFICE LIFE approaches some sort of new normal, remote working is here to stay. Employers enjoy cost savings as they spend less on desks and floor space. For employees the promise is of time saved: spared of their commute, they can get their work done and focus on their families and hobbies. That, at least, is the idea. But, as many a remote employee knows, the boundary between work and home life can blur.

This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Only disconnect”

What would America fight for?

From the December 11th 2021 edition

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People walk past cosmetic advertisements in Shanghai, China

Can anything get China’s shoppers to spend?

An economic recovery depends on it. Yet a new action plan may not do the job

illustration of houses with red roofs and white walls against a green background. Some of the houses have large yellow arrows emerging from them, pushing their roofs upward. The arrows increase in height from left to right, resembling a rising bar graph

Why rents are rising too fast

Rich-world tenants are angry, and have reason to be


Can Europe cope with a free-spending Germany?

Pity the continent’s exporters


More testosterone means higher pay—for some men

A changing appetite for status games could play a role

Why “labour shortages” don’t really exist

Use the term, and you are almost always a bad economist or a special pleader

Your guide to the new anti-immigration argument

Nativists say that migrants raise house prices, cost money and undermine economic growth. Do they have a point?