April 11, 2024
AnalysisThe Electric Vehicle Developmental State
BYD exemplifies transformations in Chinese industrial policy
The rise of the Chinese EV industry has been enabled not only by generous government subsidies but also by profound changes in strategy and organization, and in particular by a distinctive revival of vertical integration—at both individual firm and national…
November 2, 2022
InterviewsCyborg Trucking
An interview with Karen Levy on surveillance and automation in the trucking industry
The supply and demand whiplashes of the Covid-19 pandemic snarled global supply chains, shaking up labor markets and well-established migration patterns. In the process, existing cracks in logistics and infrastructure systems widened, making these systems newly visible. In the US…
June 10, 2022
AnalysisLeapfrog Logistics
Digital platforms, infrastructure, and labor in Brazil and China
In Spring 2018, two significant labor disputes broke out at opposite ends of the earth. The first, in Brazil, was a two-week-long mass strike of 400,000 truckers in response to successive price increases unleashed by the state oil company, Petrobras,…