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 ...