Bloomberg The world needs a single carbon price to reach climate targets including Europe’s pledge to eliminate emissions by 2050, said the head of the region’s biggest utility. Such a level should be between 20 euros ($28) to 40 euros per ton of carbon dioxide for the coming years, then rising gradually to punish even the most efficient fossil-fuel plants, ...

Bloomberg Presidents Emmanuel Macron and Donald Trump agreed to a truce in their dispute over digital taxes that will mean neither France nor the US will impose punitive tariffs this year. Macron said he had a “great discussion” with Trump on the issue, without giving details.“We will work together on a good agreement to avoid tariff escalation,” he said on ...

Bloomberg Investor confidence in Germany’s growth outlook rose to the highest in more than four years after easing trade tensions bolstered prospects for the country’s ailing manufacturers. ZEW’s index of expectations for the next six months increased to 26.7 in January, exceeding all estimates in a Bloomberg survey. The gauge turned positive last month for the first time since April, ...

Bloomberg The European Union (EU) got a boost in its crackdown on tax breaks for Spanish companies buying stakes in foreign firms after EU judges said a challenge involving Banco Santander SA was inadmissible. The EU Court of Justice rejected a Spanish tax tribunal’s request for guidance on the validity of European Commission decisions that found those tax breaks violated ...

Bloomberg The UK labour market held up in the face of political turmoil in the three months through November, giving Bank of England (BOE) policy makers pause as they weigh whether to cut interest rates. The employment rate hit a record high after the number of people in work surged by 208,000, the most in almost a year and double ...

Bloomberg Alphabet Inc’s chief executive officer urged the US and European Union to coordinate regulatory approaches on artificial intelligence, calling their alignment “critical.” In a rare public speech in Brussels at an event hosted by European economic think tank Bruegel, Sundar Pichai, who is also CEO of Google, said “there is no question in my mind that artificial intelligence needs ...

Huawei Technologies Co. has become very much the US’s whipping boy in the battle to nip China’s technological ascendancy in the bud. President Donald Trump’s administration has slapped sanctions and curbs on the Shenzhen-based company and lobbied allies to do the same. Last month growing resistance against Huawei among lawmakers in Germany’s governing coalition sparked threats of retaliation from the ...

With power and wealth concentration on the minds of politicians and voters in an election year, one overlooked culprit is the airline industry. Thanks in part to deregulation and consolidation of the industry during the past several decades, airlines have focused their operations in big hub airports and major coastal markets as a way of reducing excess capacity and improving ...

Traders who make a living betting on mergers still won’t touch T-Mobile US Inc. and Sprint Corp.’s deal with a 10-foot pole. The wireless carriers may have been able to butter up two federal regulatory authorities by using the wonders of a 5G-powered America to distract from their deal’s likely competitive harm. Even so, merger-arbitrage traders live in a world ...

Policy makers and voters often express concern about the level of the federal deficit, which topped $1 trillion last year, and the national debt, now more than $23 trillion. But, unlike a household that owes money to a bank, the US government has the ability to tax its creditors. This power means that the federal government can afford any level ...