THE BIG MAC index was invented by The Economist in 1986 as a lighthearted guide to whether currencies are at their “correct” level. It is based on the theory of purchasing-power parity (PPP), the notion that in the long run exchange rates should move towards the rate that would equalise the prices of an identical basket of goods and services (in this case, a burger) in any two countries.

AS COVID-19 spread around the world, people have become grimly familiar with the death tolls that their governments publish each day. Unfortunately, the total number of fatalities caused by the pandemic may be even higher, for several reasons. First, the official statistics in many countries exclude victims who did not test positive for coronavirus before dying—which can be a substantial majority in places with little capacity for testing. Second, hospitals and civil registries may not process death certificates for several days, or even weeks, which creates lags in the data. And third, the pandemic has made it harder for doctors to treat other conditions and discouraged people from going to hospital, which may have indirectly caused an increase in fatalities from diseases other than covid-19.

AS COVID-19 spread around the world, people have become grimly familiar with the death tolls that their governments publish each day. Unfortunately, the total number of fatalities caused by the pandemic may be even higher, for several reasons. First, the official statistics in many countries exclude victims who did not test positive for coronavirus before dying—which can be a substantial majority in places with little capacity for testing. Second, hospitals and civil registries may not process death certificates for several days, or even weeks, which creates lags in the data. And third, the pandemic has made it harder for doctors to treat other conditions and discouraged people from going to hospital, which may have indirectly caused an increase in fatalities from diseases other than covid-19.

SUMMER MARKS the peak wildfire season in western America. Warmer temperatures and drier conditions create the perfect environment for flames to ravage plains and forests. Long nights of fireworks and toasting s’mores over campfires do not help either. On July 4th alone California’s firefighters reported 67 blazes. The state has seen 5,000 more wildfires in 2020 than by this time last year.

Troublingly, wildfires appear to be becoming more common across America (see chart). A new working paper by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, and Stanford University finds that the area burned by wildfires in America has almost quadrupled in the past 40 years. The authors reach this conclusion by matching data from several sources: information on vegetation density from the National Land Cover Dataset; air-quality figures gathered from ground monitors; and wildfire statistics from the National Interagency Fire Center.

SUMMER MARKS the peak wildfire season in western America. Warmer temperatures and drier conditions create the perfect environment for flames to ravage plains and forests. Long nights of fireworks and toasting s’mores over campfires do not help either. On July 4th alone California’s firefighters reported 67 blazes. The state has seen 5,000 more wildfires in 2020 than by this time last year.

Troublingly, wildfires appear to be becoming more common across America (see chart). A new working paper by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, and Stanford University finds that the area burned by wildfires in America has almost quadrupled in the past 40 years. The authors reach this conclusion by matching data from several sources: information on vegetation density from the National Land Cover Dataset; air-quality figures gathered from ground monitors; and wildfire statistics from the National Interagency Fire Center.

SUMMER MARKS the peak wildfire season in western America. Warmer temperatures and drier conditions create the perfect environment for flames to ravage plains and forests. Long nights of fireworks and toasting s’mores over campfires do not help either. On July 4th alone California’s firefighters reported 67 blazes. The state has seen 5,000 more wildfires in 2020 than by this time last year.

Troublingly, wildfires appear to be becoming more common across America (see chart). A new working paper by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, and Stanford University finds that the area burned by wildfires in America has almost quadrupled in the past 40 years. The authors reach this conclusion by matching data from several sources: information on vegetation density from the National Land Cover Dataset; air-quality figures gathered from ground monitors; and wildfire statistics from the National Interagency Fire Center.

Sources: US Census Bureau; MIT Election and Data Science Lab; 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study; US Bureau of Economic Analysis; American National Election Studies; 270towin.com; Gallup; FiveThirtyEight; YouGov

Forecast by The Economist with Andrew Gelman and Merlin Heidemanns, Columbia University

SUMMER MARKS the peak wildfire season in western America. Warmer temperatures and drier conditions create the perfect environment for flames to ravage plains and forests. Long nights of fireworks and toasting s’mores over campfires do not help either. On July 4th alone California’s firefighters reported 67 blazes. The state has seen 5,000 more wildfires in 2020 than by this time last year.

Troublingly, wildfires appear to be becoming more common across America (see chart). A new working paper by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, and Stanford University finds that the area burned by wildfires in America has almost quadrupled in the past 40 years. The authors reach this conclusion by matching data from several sources: information on vegetation density from the National Land Cover Dataset; air-quality figures gathered from ground monitors; and wildfire statistics from the National Interagency Fire Center.

MOST YOUNG people these days need a boost to get on the property ladder. In Britain more than 60% of homebuyers under 35 get financial help from their parents, according to Legal & General, a British insurer. Such assistance averaged £24,100 ($30,000) last year, up from £17,500 in 2016. The so-called Bank of Mum and Dad is now, in effect, the 11th-largest mortgage lender in the country. The same applies elsewhere. In America, parents are the seventh-biggest lender, according to another study.

But for many young adults, the financial support does not end there. In a new paper, researchers at the University of Copenhagen combined customer data from Danske Bank, Denmark’s biggest lender, with government records about where these customers live, work and went to school, and how much they earn. With the resulting database, the researchers tried to understand how much young Danes, aged 20 to 39, are supported financially by their friends and family.

GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP), the most common gauge of national prosperity, has taken a lot of flak in recent years. Critics say that counting a country’s spending on goods, services and investment misses the full value that citizens get from products such as Google and Facebook. They also note that GDP ignores other aspects of development, including personal health, leisure time and happiness.

These criticisms probably exaggerate GDP’s failure to capture the wealth of nations. Gallup, a pollster, has asked people in 145 countries about various aspects of well-being. Many of these correlate strongly with GDP per person. To take an obvious example, nearly all residents in the top 10% of countries by spending say they have enough money for food, compared with just two-fifths of those in the bottom 10%.

Strikingly, many non-financial indicators also track GDP per person closely. Residents in the top 10% of countries score their life situation as seven out of ten,...

MOST YOUNG people these days need a boost to get on the property ladder. In Britain more than 60% of homebuyers under 35 get financial help from their parents, according to Legal & General, a British insurer. Such assistance averaged £24,100 ($30,000) last year, up from £17,500 in 2016. The so-called Bank of Mum and Dad is now, in effect, the 11th-largest mortgage lender in the country. The same applies elsewhere. In America, parents are the seventh-biggest lender, according to another study.

But for many young adults, the financial support does not end there. In a new paper, researchers at the University of Copenhagen combined customer data from Danske Bank, Denmark’s biggest lender, with government records about where these customers live, work and went to school, and how much they earn. With the resulting database, the researchers tried to understand how much young Danes, aged 20 to 39, are supported financially by their friends and family.

MOST YOUNG people these days need a boost to get on the property ladder. In Britain more than 60% of homebuyers under 35 get financial help from their parents, according to Legal & General, a British insurer. Such assistance averaged £24,100 ($30,000) last year, up from £17,500 in 2016. The so-called Bank of Mum and Dad is now, in effect, the 11th-largest mortgage lender in the country. The same applies elsewhere. In America, parents are the seventh-biggest lender, according to another study.

But for many young adults, the financial support does not end there. In a new paper, researchers at the University of Copenhagen combined customer data from Danske Bank, Denmark’s biggest lender, with government records about where these customers live, work and went to school, and how much they earn. With the resulting database, the researchers tried to understand how much young Danes, aged 20 to 39, are supported financially by their friends and family.

Sources: US Census Bureau; MIT Election and Data Science Lab; 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study; US Bureau of Economic Analysis; American National Election Studies; 270towin.com; Gallup; FiveThirtyEight; YouGov

Forecast by The Economist with Andrew Gelman and Merlin Heidemanns, Columbia University

GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP), the most common gauge of national prosperity, has taken a lot of flak in recent years. Critics say that counting a country’s spending on goods, services and investment misses the full value that citizens get from products such as Google and Facebook. They also note that GDP ignores other aspects of development, including personal health, leisure time and happiness.

These criticisms probably exaggerate GDP’s failure to capture the wealth of nations. Gallup, a pollster, has asked people in 145 countries about various aspects of well-being. Many of these correlate strongly with GDP per person. To take an obvious example, nearly all residents in the top 10% of countries by spending say they have enough money for food, compared with just two-fifths of those in the bottom 10%.

Strikingly, many non-financial indicators also track GDP per person closely. Residents in the top 10% of countries score their life situation as seven out of ten,...

GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP), the most common gauge of national prosperity, has taken a lot of flak in recent years. Critics say that counting a country’s spending on goods, services and investment misses the full value that citizens get from products such as Google and Facebook. They also note that GDP ignores other aspects of development, including personal health, leisure time and happiness.

These criticisms probably exaggerate GDP’s failure to capture the wealth of nations. Gallup, a pollster, has asked people in 145 countries about various aspects of well-being. Many of these correlate strongly with GDP per person. To take an obvious example, nearly all residents in the top 10% of countries by spending say they have enough money for food, compared with just two-fifths of those in the bottom 10%.

Strikingly, many non-financial indicators also track GDP per person closely. Residents in the top 10% of countries score their life situation as seven out of ten,...

Sources: US Census Bureau; MIT Election and Data Science Lab; 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study; US Bureau of Economic Analysis; American National Election Studies; 270towin.com; Gallup; FiveThirtyEight; YouGov

Forecast by The Economist with Andrew Gelman and Merlin Heidemanns, Columbia University

WHEN FINANCIERS and governments redesigned the financial system in order to make it safer after the debacle of 2007-09, most of them imagined that a shock as bad as the subprime fiasco would be a generation away. In fact it arrived only a decade or so later. Lockdowns have led to a savage recession that is expected to produce huge loan losses as firms and households suffer.

So are too-big-to-fail banks really safer? The latest stress tests conducted by the Federal Reserve suggest the answer in America is “yes”. On June 25th the Fed released the results of its annual exercise, which compares banks’ buffers with the losses they would face in a downturn. In a pessimistic “u-shape” scenario, in which the economy faces prolonged social distancing and repeated outbreaks of the virus, the Fed reckons that banks would face total losses of over $700bn on their collective loan book. The hit is well above the worst case of $465bn that was envisaged in 2009, when the Fed did its...

GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP), the most common gauge of national prosperity, has taken a lot of flak in recent years. Critics say that counting a country’s spending on goods, services and investment misses the full value that citizens get from products such as Google and Facebook. They also note that GDP ignores other aspects of development, including personal health, leisure time and happiness.

These criticisms probably exaggerate GDP’s failure to capture the wealth of nations. Gallup, a pollster, has asked people in 145 countries about various aspects of well-being. Many of these correlate strongly with GDP per person. To take an obvious example, nearly all residents in the top 10% of countries by spending say they have enough money for food, compared with just two-fifths of those in the bottom 10%.

Strikingly, many non-financial indicators also track GDP per person closely. Residents in the top 10% of countries score their life situation as seven out of ten,...

WHEN FINANCIERS and governments redesigned the financial system in order to make it safer after the debacle of 2007-09, most of them imagined that a shock as bad as the subprime fiasco would be a generation away. In fact it arrived only a decade or so later. Lockdowns have led to a savage recession that is expected to produce huge loan losses as firms and households suffer.

So are too-big-to-fail banks really safer? The latest stress tests conducted by the Federal Reserve suggest the answer in America is “yes”. On June 25th the Fed released the results of its annual exercise, which compares banks’ buffers with the losses they would face in a downturn. In a pessimistic “u-shape” scenario, in which the economy faces prolonged social distancing and repeated outbreaks of the virus, the Fed reckons that banks would face total losses of over $700bn on their collective loan book. The hit is well above the worst case of $465bn that was envisaged in 2009, when the Fed did its...

WHEN FINANCIERS and governments redesigned the financial system in order to make it safer after the debacle of 2007-09, most of them imagined that a shock as bad as the subprime fiasco would be a generation away. In fact it arrived only a decade or so later. Lockdowns have led to a savage recession that is expected to produce huge loan losses as firms and households suffer.

So are too-big-to-fail banks really safer? The latest stress tests conducted by the Federal Reserve suggest the answer in America is “yes”. On June 25th the Fed released the results of its annual exercise, which compares banks’ buffers with the losses they would face in a downturn. In a pessimistic “u-shape” scenario, in which the economy faces prolonged social distancing and repeated outbreaks of the virus, the Fed reckons that banks would face total losses of over $700bn on their collective loan book. The hit is well above the worst case of $465bn that was envisaged in 2009, when the Fed did its...

DURING THE pandemic, arguments have raged over the wearing of masks. This week in France, they spilled into violence. A bus driver in Bayonne was left brain-dead on Monday after being attacked by passengers. He asked them to wear masks, as French law requires on public transport. Five men refused to comply and assaulted him. A dispute over a measure supposed to protect people’s lives ended in a near-fatal assault.

The refusal to wear masks has been widespread in much of Europe. In February YouGov, a pollster, began collaborating with Imperial College London to monitor behavioural changes in response to covid-19. YouGov tracks the habits of 21,000 people across 29 countries, on a weekly basis. In February, as the pandemic began to spread from China, it found only a tiny proportion of people across Europe were wearing masks. By the end of June, though, mask-wearing had become widely accepted in Spain (86%), Italy (81%), and, despite this week’s attack, France (78%).