Unrestrained growth has a price. The case in point is China’s overcapacity in heavy industries whose over-proportional development is causing damage to its own and the global economy, even as Beijing struggles to regulate and reform its industries. The hardest hit is China’s steel industry, which manufactures more than the next four largest producers combined — Japan, India, the US, ...

In assessing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ability to stay in power and defy the West, one crucial question is how much longer his government’s finances can stand extremely low oil prices. Judging from an analysis by economists at Deutsche Bank, he might be able to hold out longer than previously thought. Russia is peculiarly sensitive to energy prices, in part ...

The so-called war on cash has been getting a lot of airtime in recent days. On one side of the battleground are European Central Bank President Mario Draghi and former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, calling for the abolition of high-denomination banknotes to (they say) combat crime. Opposing the plan are skeptics who fear it will lead to abolishing cash ...