Opinion

While flying last week to a conference in Reykjavík, it dawned on me that I knew almost nothing about Iceland. What little understanding I had was based on Michael Lewis’ epic tale of the nation’s financial collapse in Vanity Fair magazine entitled, “Wall Street on the Tundra.” His 10,000-word missive is a Norse saga of its own. Other Icelandic literature ...

During China’s greatest period of economic growth, fed by widespread industrialisation that lifted millions out of poverty, inequality has also increased — at the fastest pace and to the highest level in the world. It may get worse. China’s Gini coefficient, a widely used measure of income dispersion across a population, has risen more steeply over the last decade than ...

So much for hell on the British high street. Next Plc, the clothing retailer, has upgraded its profit forecast for this year by 10 million pounds ($13 million), meaning they’ll be on a par with 2017. The shares jumped by 8 percent. Simon Wolfson, chief executive, had expected UK shoppers to rein in their spending in August and September after ...

When considering what to do about pollution, there are two kinds of people: techno-optimists who assume humanity will eventually find a way to clean up all our messes, and those less fun but more pragmatic environmentalists who say that it’s always easier and cheaper to avoid making the mess in the first place. Battle just broke out between these two ...

After his victory last week in an internal vote to lead Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe looks set to remain in office till 2021 — longer than any Japanese political leader since the days of the samurai. He has a lot still to do in this third and last term, and shouldn’t waste his remaining time ...

It worked in the 1990s: The US economy continued to grow strongly for several years even after it showed signs of capacity constraints and low unemployment. The question is whether that can happen again, or whether this cycle is destined to end in a bout of inflation that prompts the Federal Reserve to raise rates and end the party. The ...

There’s a flaw in the forecast for an ever-rising Asia: a vast gap in the financial system. Big slices of the population don’t have a bank account. It’s hard to see the region reaching its full potential, let alone surpassing the US as an economic superpower, until this bridge is crossed. An economy without broad use of banks cannot grow ...

Spare a thought for Mario Draghi, if you can. The European Central Bank (ECB) president never tires of telling politicians about the urgent need to complete the euro zone’s half-finished monetary union. His logic is sound about this being the best way to fight future crises. Yet after a year in which the region’s leaders failed to do even the ...

During the past decade, China has been investing a lot of money in sub-Saharan Africa: Some Western observers worry that this represents a new form of colonialism. Given the continent’s history with European conquerors and rich countries trying to cheaply exploit its natural resources, that suspicion is understandable. But although China can sometimes be predatory — for example, when uneconomical ...

It’s good to see politicians belatedly waking up to the risk of crypto-currencies. British lawmakers are banging the drum for the regulation of Bitcoin, Ethereum and their brethren in order to protect consumers. It may be too late for all those unfortunates who got burned this year, but it’s still a better look than George Osborne eagerly using a Bitcoin ...