By now, most people who read about economics have heard about the empirical revolution in the field. An economist used to be someone who spun theories out of reasonable-sounding assumptions to tell stories about why the world works the way it does. Nowadays, economists still have to understand theory, but their day-to-day work involves combing through data and crunching statistics. …

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp. has been debating proposals from Chief Operating Officer Tom Montag’s subordinates to rapidly build out a European trading hub in Paris, according to people with knowledge of the talks. Montag and some of the firm’s most senior leaders recently discussed whether to alter a tentative plan to send a few hundred employees to the French …

Bloomberg A warning indicator for banking stress in China fell for a fifth-straight quarter, signaling that the leadership’s drive to squeeze risk from the financial system is making progress. China’s credit-to-gross domestic product “gap” declined to 18.9 percent in the second quarter from 22.1 percent in the first three months of this year, according to data released by the Bank …