Opinion

  The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) will shape the world’s future. It has already dawned on us. The UAE is joining the World Economic Forum (WEF) to lead from the front as it ushers in the 4IR and gives fillip to technological advancements. While setting up the world’s first permanent policy council that will study and implement the plans of …

  Russian President Vladimir Putin has been rather consistent lately in making it clear that senior officials were not immune from corruption charges. Yet Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev’s arrest in the wee hours of Tuesday still stands out. It raises questions about the future of Putin’s highly professional, technocratic economic team as well as one of the president’s closest associates, …

  Pity the poor pension fund manager. Toward the end of October, there was finally a chance to add some yield to a European fixed-income portfolio by lending money to Austria for 70 years at a yield of 1.53 percent. The sale raised 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion); it could have fetched more than six times as much, given the …

  There will be the temptation to see Hillary Clinton’s defeat as evidence that a woman can’t rise to the top. If we’re not careful, the dominant gender will whisper in the backroom, let’s not nominate one of them again. But it will happen, nonetheless —and thanks to Clinton. Just seeing her win her party’s nomination and triumph in three …

  The politician who ought to be most immune to the populist rage sweeping the world’s democracies should be Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. A former mayor who won election in Florence at the age of 29 as the radical alternative to an establishment candidate, Renzi has solid populist credentials. Moreover, Italians have already had their Donald Trump. Billionaire businessman …

For more than two years, markets have priced in a lot less monetary tightening than was signalled by the Federal Reserve’s “blue dots,” which represent the expectations of individual members of the Open Market Committee for the future path of interest rates. The surprise election of Donald Trump is likely to affect this divergence for two distinct reasons, and the …

  In the wake of the U.S. presidential election result, EU leaders are placing an even greater premium on solidarity. So in this topsy-turvy year, here’s another sobering thought to consider: Robust growth of the U.K. economy since the Brexit vote could be bad news for both the country and the continent. Let me explain. The economic picture in Britain …

  First, the good news. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have stayed nearly the same for three years till 2015 at 36.3 billion tonnes. It will rise only by 0.2 percent by this year-end. Now, the bad news. Despite the levelling off of CO2 emission, it is not enough to check global warming and tackle climate change. The annual Global Carbon …

  With globalization receding and China’s economy slowing down, there’s speculation that the Asia boom is over. It isn’t. The ascension of China and India continues to be the most important economic story in the world. To get a picture of how important these countries are, it helps to look at how much they’ve mattered in recent years. Here is …

  Are U.S. authorities being overzealous in their efforts to extract money from corporate miscreants? Actually, the right question might be why, despite the advent of multi-billion-dollar penalties, companies keep breaking the law. A new batch of fines — most notably the Justice Department’s $14 billion opening bid to settle the mortgage-related transgressions of Germany’s Deutsche Bank AG — has …