Affordable medicines remain out of reach for millions because pharmaceutical innovation is organized around value extraction, not public health. How do shareholder-driven governance and fragmented global health financing reinforce inequity, and what structural reforms are needed to reverse it?
The global medicine-access crisis is not simply a failure to balance innovation and affordability. It reflects a deeper system in which shareholder-driven pharmaceutical governance and fragmented donor structures undermine public health and block the shift toward more equitable value creation.
Containers are stacked up in a cargo terminal in Frankfurt, Germany. AP Photo/Michael ProbstU.S. companies stung by President Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs had hoped for relief when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in February 2026 in their favor. But settling on a remedy – namely, rebate checks from the government – may be an even bigger headache.
Cars lined up at a US gas station during the oil shock of 1979. Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty ImagesOn October 6 1973, the Yom Kippur War – mainly involving Egypt, Syria and Israel –triggered one of the biggest energy crises of the 20th century.
Our new methodology builds an inter-country input-output table that distinguishes green products from the rest, allowing us to assess vulnerabilities in green value chains. In a multi-country, multi-sector model, our table reveals that a decoupling of green supply chains between a US-centric West and a China-centric East could globally cut trade in green products by up to 20%, lower welfare by up to 3% and raise yearly global greenhouse gas emissions by about 50 million tonnes.
Pavel Danilyuk/Pexels“Cashback” apps make an enticing promise. You download an app or click on a web browser extension. You go about your online shopping as usual, spend money, but then get some cash back. It sounds simple, right?
In recent years, cashback programs have made a serious splash with online shoppers.
Every few months, someone in the superannuation industry declares that Australians now “need” around A$1 million to retire comfortably. It’s a big, scary number.
But consumer advocates say most people can retire with far less.
Independent estimates suggest something closer to $322,000 is enough for many retirees who own their own home. So who’s right – and what assumptions drive these wildly different targets?
Less capital, more risk, familiar consequences. The latest move on big-bank rules suggests that too big to fail was never solved, only deferred.
The latest move to ease capital rules for large banks is being sold as a technical adjustment. It is nothing of the sort. It is another step in a long retreat from the post-2008 financial crisis promise to discipline concentrated financial power and protect the public from having to underwrite private risk.
That is the old too-big-to-fail bargain, dressed again in the language of efficiency.
Sinem Görücü via Better Images of AI, CC BYAustralia’s research and innovation system is “broken” and needs “bold reform”, according to a major new independent report released on Tuesday.
A case for tackling the corporate machinery driving extreme wealth, and the reforms that could truly curb it.
Targeting billionaires with California’s proposed wealth tax is an eye-catching idea, but perhaps the real problem is how some of these people become billionaires in the first place.
