Among the most important questions facing China’s economy is this: How stable are the banks? The big picture is pretty well known, and ugly. Debt stands at nearly 300 percent of gross domestic product. Some analysts think the non-performing loan ratio —officially at 1.74% —may actually be as high as 25%. Even state media is promising a ‘war on financial ...

Think you have to be online to succeed in UK retail these days? Think again. Some of the winners over the crucial holiday period don’t even sell via the internet. Although Associated British Foods Plc’s Primark suffered from the warm October —as did its rivals —its domestic sales were miles ahead. It was a similar picture at the UK arms ...

The quest to replace per capita GDP as a growth indicator has officially come full circle: If you aggregate the latest version —just unveiled at Davos by the World Economic Forum (WEF) —with previous attempts, the top of the resulting list isn’t that different from the original recipe. Like the other composite indicators —the United Nations’ Human Development Index, the ...