In the latest effort to prop up economy and spur growth, Japan’s cabinet on Tuesday approved a massive 28-trillion yen stimulus package, including cash to improve infrastructure and raise the birth rate in the ageing nation. Undoubtedly, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has deployed many strategies to goad the economy to grow. He somehow convinced the country’s central bank to …

  Lionel Laurent Italy has a well-known problem: A stack of bad loans on the books of its banks and nobody willing to buy them at current prices. Until investors get more reassurance on what these loans are truly worth, Italian banks won’t emerge from their crisis — and will suffer more losses in future. The plan to rescue Banca …

  Helicopter money is back in the headlines amid speculation that Japan may turn in desperation to the final chapter of the handbook of unconventional monetary policy. But there’s an alternative to handing consumers a one-time payment in the hopes they’ll spend it: Give them a permanent wage hike instead. Milton Friedman’s thought experiment about whirlybirds dropping cash from the …