After years of crisis management, heightened self-doubt and even existential threats, Europe is in a much better place. Economic growth is picking up, political uncertainty has diminished and, despite (if not partially because of) Brexit, the vision of an “ever-closer” regional union is energizing some new constructive thinking in core countries. Translating this into sustainable prosperity, however, is far from ...

Lee Shau Kee, the billionaire chairman of Henderson Land Development Co., has said he will donate HK$1 billion ($128 million) to charity each year that the Hang Seng Index stays above 30,000, and double that if it reaches 40,000. The 89-year-old should be prepared to hand out the cash. Sure, Hong Kong’s benchmark gauge closed above 30,000 on only one ...

Should central banks embrace cryptocurrencies, or even pioneer their own? In a nutshell, no. Crypto assets are an unusual innovation, still in flux and often poorly understood. Trying to centralize them in a bureaucracy is exactly the wrong way to go. Yet China’s central bank claims it is working towards a blockchain-based digital currency. Singapore has already experimented in this ...