At its best, economics poses a simple question: What makes people better off, and how can we have more of it? This year, the Nobel committee has rightly chosen to honor two academics, William Nordhaus and Paul Romer, who have demonstrated a rare dedication to finding answers — and to making the case for action. Economic growth can be a ...

The rejiggered North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) pulls the Mexican and US economies closer together, and raises the drawbridge to reduce trade with Asia. For Mexicans who already felt too dependent on the US, this is a grim combination. The reconfigured accord, announced last week, seems like another chapter in the global playbook of muscular regionalism. Globalisation is morphing ...

A couple of things happened last week in India that deserve a bit of attention — mostly because they reveal how deep the country’s structural problems go and how few good options the government has left. The first was the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) decision to hold interest rates steady even though the rupee had hit record lows against ...

How do you mislay 75 million euros ($86 million) of operating profit in just three weeks? That’s the question Ceconomy AG investors are asking themselves after the German electronics retailer issued its second profit warning in rapid succession. Bizarrely, the company hasn’t provided an explanation for the further 16 percent downgrade to its operating profit forecast for the financial year ...

Japan Inc. is leaping into the future of cars, courtesy of SoftBank Group Corp. On October 3, Honda Motor Co. announced a $2.75 billion investment in General Motors Co.’s self-driving subsidiary Cruise, a departure from the Japanese carmaker’s tight-fisted approach to technology spending. That follows SoftBank Vision Fund’s $2.25 billion outlay just months ago. With these, GM Cruise is now ...

Bloomberg US stocks fell for a fifth day as Treasury yields resumed their upward march and investors grew increasingly concerned about the effects of the trade war with China. Oil held near $75 a barrel as a major hurricane headed for the Florida Panhandle. The S&P 500 headed for its longest slide since Donald Trump’s election win on rising concern ...

Bloomberg Indian stocks rebounded as some investors judged the recent selloff as excessive after the benchmark index closed at a six-month low. The S&P BSE Sensex rose 1.4 percent to 34,760.89 at close in Mumbai after a technical indicator fell below a level that some investors see as a signal to buy shares. Seventeen of 19 sector sub-indexes compiled by ...

Bloomberg Avoiding smaller stocks around recessions may be a big error. While US small-cap and midcap equities have historically underperformed large caps during recession-linked down- turns, the gap pales in comparison with smaller stocks’ superior returns over a full economic cycle, according to a note from JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists led by Eduardo Lecubarri. They say an economic contraction ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump said the Federal Reserve is moving too fast with interest-rate increases and dismissed concerns about inflation, exte- nding his run of criticism that central bankers have largely disregarded as they push ahead with higher borrowing costs. “I don’t like it,” Trump said at the White House, referring to the Fed’s rate hikes, the most recent of ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. won a decisive ruling at France’s top court in its bid to strike down an indictment that ordered the bank to stand trial for helping clients commit tax fraud more than a decade ago. France’s Cour de Cassation ruled last month that a lower court should have thrown out the 2016 indictment after finding that ...