In one of the most important rulings in its history, the European Court of Justice gave the European Commission broad powers to negotiate trade deals without the approval of each member state. This is likely to make Brexit negotiations much easier than expected, but the final deal — if there is one — worse for the U.K. Formally, the ruling …

When we think about productivity, we often have a bias towards physical goods — things we can touch and feel, like iPhones or suits. But over the past century, as the economic historian Stephen Broadberry has shown, services, not manufacturing, have been key to explaining which countries are moving up or down the international productivity league table. And yet advanced …

Bloomberg The European Central Bank said debt-sustainability concerns have risen in the past six months amid a potential increase in yields and political uncertainty in some countries. “Risks to financial stability stemming from financial markets remain significant,” the Frankfurt-based institution said in its Financial Stability Review. An abrupt bond-market repricing could “materialize via spillovers from higher yields in advanced economies, …