However, poor farmers frequently cannot afford to buy new seed each season, so they take their chances and replant the best of their seed from year to year in the belief that a new plant that is not quite as good as its parent is better than no plant at all.

ECONOMIST: Terminator genes

However, a wealth of academic research has shown that when a company opens a plant abroad, demand in its home country gets a boost too: sales by the parent company grow and jobs and exports at home tend to rise.

ECONOMIST: The less obvious uses of tax havens