Opinion

Philip Lane, the governor of the Central Bank of Ireland, is set to be the next chief economist of the European Central Bank (ECB) – a key policy-setting position. Lane is considered a monetary policy dove, but there’s more to his views on how the euro area should function. He has controversial positions on the need for a European safe ...

In the days after he resigned as secretary of defense in December, Jim Mattis told people he hoped to be succeeded by Patrick Shanahan, his deputy. Shanahan has remained in limbo since then as acting secretary, perhaps trying to convince President Trump’s critics that he will be independent, the way Mattis was, while simultaneously reassuring the White House that he ...

Mario Draghi is rarely afraid to adopt difficult positions on the subject of Europe’s future. The president of the European Central Bank (ECB) has advocated that the euro zone should build a capital market union, complete the banking union and move towards a centralised budget – even though political leaders are reluctant to take those steps. Last week, Draghi took ...

It’s shaping up to be another tough quarter for securities firms, the world’s biggest trading house has warned. JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s grim assessment of market conditions this year is more than a stark reminder that the wallet keeps shrinking. The US firm warned this week that it expects trading revenue to shrink by a low-teens percentage in the first ...

The alarming new standoff between India and Pakistan could end in any number of ways, from talks and a quick truce, to a series of military escalations that risk ending in a nuclear exchange. At such a perilous moment, the need for calm and dialogue is plain – but more than this is required. The longtime South Asian rivals need ...

From the 1990s through the early 2010s, it looked as if China could do no wrong. Its economy grew at a breakneck pace as its companies hungrily gobbled up market share in a wide array of manufacturing industries. Its political system, although authoritarian, seemed increasingly stable, as power passed from Deng Xiaoping to Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao to Xi ...

Hyundai Mobis Co.’s latest plan brings to mind one image: a damp squib. Again. The South Korean chaebol’s auto-parts unit released an outline to “maximize” shareholder value. It’ll do anything but that. The company also formally proposed family heir Euisun Chung as CEO of the unit, which has been under fire by Paul Singer’s Elliott Management Corp. So Chung had ...

In his testimony to Congress, Chairman Jerome Powell confirmed that the Federal Reserve has undertaken a dramatic policy pivot, opening the door even wider for other central banks to also adopt more dovish stances. The shift increases the risk that many on Wall Street could slip back into the comforting belief that renewed central bank support is sufficient to ensure ...

On Monday, the British Met Office recorded the UK’s warmest winter day on record. In Chile, January temperatures in the capital city of Santiago beat the previous record by a full degree Celsius. Globally, the last five years were collectively the world’s warmest ever. Ever. The world is losing the race to curb carbon dioxide emissions. In 2017, output of ...

China has long been criticised both for its obsession with GDP statistics and their quality: Pressuring cadres to meet growth targets has encouraged a risky buildup of debt and, at times, the outright fabrication of numbers. If anything, though, the quality of China’s official employment data is even worse — and the inaccuracies could have equally dangerous repercussions. Until relatively ...