In this week's wrapup, we talk about a tax for Bengaluru’s traffic, Claudia Goldin’s Economics Nobel, the Israel-Palestine conflict and more.

For the markets edition this week, we discuss Vedanta’s demerger. You can read it here. Also, a quick side note. If you have a flair for writing and are enthusiastic about joining our creative team, Finshots is looking to recruit Content Writers and Marketers to work out of our Bangalore Office. Click here to apply

Meanwhile, here’s a recap of what we wrote over the week.

Can a tax solve Bengaluru’s traffic woes?

Remember the massive traffic jam in Bengaluru last week? Comedian Trevor Noah was apparently 20-minutes late to his stand up show that day. School kids reached home at 9 pm. People didn’t get taxis and even walked 12km to get home.

And now, there are renewed calls to fix this traffic mess. But one thing caught our attention. A tax. So we wrote about it here on Monday.

Is Airbnb broken?

Exactly a year ago, many people were predicting the collapse of Airbnb. Reddit forums and Twitter were calling it the “Airbnbust”. Rumour had it that the occupancy rates on the short-term housing rental platform had dropped like a rock. And that no one wanted to stay in an Airbnb anymore.

A year later, its shares are up 14%. It all turned out to be just a rumour. But a couple of days ago Airbnb’s CEO Brian Chesky acknowledged that it’s a fundamentally broken business. So we tried to make sense of it in our Tuesday’s story here.

Why Claudia Goldin won the Nobel Prize in Economics

Women typically earn less than men for the same job. Women end up with less representation on corporate boards. And women-led startups attract less attention and money from venture capitalists. It’s a known fact that most of us have unfortunately come to normalise. But Nobel Prize winner Claudia Goldin didn’t.

What she did instead, was dig up data spanning over 200 years in the US to find the answer to why there’s such a massive pay divide between men and women and why it continues. And that’s what she won the Nobel for ― her research spanning decades on these lines. We tried to condense all of it in our Wednesday’s newsletter here.

An explainer on the Israel-Palestine conflict

Last week, the militant and terrorist group Hamas attacked Israel. They massacred hundreds of innocent people. And Israel retaliated with its own airstrikes which, in turn, has killed many people including civilians. It’s an incredibly sad time for the region and the world. And we hope it comes to an end soon.

But how did we get to this? And what have been the economic implications of this long-standing war? We wrote about it on Thursday here.

What ails LIC?

Since it went public last year, LIC’s shares have dropped by 20%. It’s continuously losing market share in the life insurance space too. From being the only brand monopolising the Indian life insurance sector until 2000, it now controls only 59% of the market in terms of premiums from new policies.

So, what’s going on? We answered that in our Friday’s newsletter here.

We hope you enjoyed our weekly wrapup. Have a great weekend!

Until then…

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