Mario Draghi has worked nothing short of monetary miracles over his eight-year term as European Central Bank (ECB) President through a sequence of unconventional policy interventions. As we count down the days to Draghi’s departure, expectations are building once again that he will be able to pull one final rabbit out of the hat. Whether long-term loans to banks, a ...

Since the days of Thomas Malthus, we’ve worried that overpopulation is about to overwhelm our planet. Those fears haven’t gone away. A further two billion people will be added to the current world population of 7.7 billion by 2050, the United Nations Population Division said in a report. Numbers will still be rising as the total approaches 11 billion people ...

Viral Acharya’s departure as a deputy governor of the India’s central bank is worrisome, though not altogether surprising. Last October, Acharya delivered a hard-hitting speech on central bank independence. While that ostensibly dealt with Argentina in 2010, the thinly veiled similarity with New Delhi’s plan to raid the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) balance sheet didn’t fool anyone, least of ...

FedEx Corp. may finally be waking up to the threat Amazon.com Inc. poses to its business model. The logistics company is offering big discounts to help fill the planes in its Express delivery network with more e-commerce shipments, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited people familiar with the matter. The deals are being used to woo customers away ...

Bloomberg Three big Chinese banks extended their drop on Wednesday, after a US media report suggested they could face fallout from an investigation into North Korean sanctions violations. China Merchants Bank Co., Bank of Communications Co. and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co. fell in Shanghai and Hong Kong trading after the Washington Post said that a US judge found three ...

Bloomberg The Czech central bank took a step back from Europe’s most aggressive campaign of interest-rate increases as global risks to the export-oriented economy overshadow domestic price pressures. After raising borrowing costs last month for the eighth time in two years, the central bank left the benchmark rate at 2 percent on Wednesday, in line with expectations. Policy makers have ...

Bloomberg HDFC Bank Ltd., India’s biggest lender by market value, has picked Bank of America Corp. and Morgan Stanley to manage an initial public offering of its non-bank finance unit, people with knowledge of the matter said. The bank plans to sell the shares in HDB Financial Services Ltd. before March 31 in a deal that may raise about 100 ...

Bloomberg Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the downside risks to the US economy have increased recently, reinforcing the case among policy makers for somewhat lower interest rates. “Crosscurrents have reem-erged, with apparent progress on trade turning to greater uncertainty and with incoming data raising renewed concerns about the strength of the global economy,” Powell told the Council on Foreign ...

Bloomberg Mario Draghi is once again testing the boundaries of the law in his efforts to lift the euro zone out of its economic malaise. When the European Central Bank president promised last week to add monetary stimulus if the outlook doesn’t improve, he said one option is to resume large-scale purchases of government bonds. He also said self-imposed limits ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Thailand left its benchmark interest rate unchanged for a fourth straight meeting, while at the same time downgrading its economic growth outlook and raising concerns about the strong currency. The Monetary Policy Committee voted unanimously to hold its key rate at 1.75 percent, the central bank said in a statement, in line with almost all of ...