Might this be China’s new Venezuela? Beijing’s frenzied drive to create a modern Silk Road puts Pakistan front and center, much as Venezuela was once a target of lending by China Development Bank as the nation sought to secure oil supplies. Of the $6 billion to $7 billion of current development projects in Pakistan as part of the China-Pakistan Economic ...

Almost daily, newspapers in the US, Europe and China release eye-catching headlines about China’s technological advances and economic prowess. The accomplishments are real. But they’re not necessarily evidence of Western failure or Chinese invincibility. In touting such achievements, commentators too often overlook the structural factors that have shaped them. Economists now recognize just how much of economic interaction is driven ...

“Why did the market go up today?” “There must have been more buyers than sellers.” That piece of circular logic is a sort of laconic joke among traders, equivalent to saying: “I have no idea.” Naturally, prices will only rise if the enthusiasm of buyers outweighs the fear of sellers. At the same time, it captures a worthwhile nugget of ...

By now, most people who read about economics have heard about the empirical revolution in the field. An economist used to be someone who spun theories out of reasonable-sounding assumptions to tell stories about why the world works the way it does. Nowadays, economists still have to understand theory, but their day-to-day work involves combing through data and crunching statistics. ...

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp. has been debating proposals from Chief Operating Officer Tom Montag’s subordinates to rapidly build out a European trading hub in Paris, according to people with knowledge of the talks. Montag and some of the firm’s most senior leaders recently discussed whether to alter a tentative plan to send a few hundred employees to the French ...

Bloomberg A warning indicator for banking stress in China fell for a fifth-straight quarter, signaling that the leadership’s drive to squeeze risk from the financial system is making progress. China’s credit-to-gross domestic product “gap” declined to 18.9 percent in the second quarter from 22.1 percent in the first three months of this year, according to data released by the Bank ...

Bloomberg Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Haruhiko Kuroda gave the clearest signal yet that his recent comments about the “reversal rate” theory weren’t an indication of tighter monetary policy in the coming year. The BOJ’s yield-curve control program, partly intended to address the impact of monetary easing on Japanese banks, has been successful and hasn’t created any problems for financial ...

Bloomberg The Indian central bank’s tendency to overestimate inflation has prevented it from cutting interest rates further and cost the economy, according to one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s advisers. “Their view of the economy doesn’t seem to be correct,” and by keeping rates high, they “have imposed a high output sacrifice,” said Ashima Goyal, a member of Prime Minister’s ...

Bloomberg Central bankers are starting to see promising results from one of the recent additions to their monetary policy toolbox. Lending curbs to stem financial risk — so-called macroprudential limits — have helped slow risky borrowing and temper property price bubbles in countries from New Zealand to Canada, a host of financial stability reports showed this week. While there hasn’t ...

Bloomberg Asiana Airlines Inc., South Korea’s No 2 carrier, is increasingly dogged by rising borrowing costs just as stiff competition from low-cost rivals looms over a potential rebound in its China business. The Bank of Korea’s first interest-rate increase since 2011 may add to the Seoul-based carrier’s woes by pushing up funding costs, according to Shinhan Investment Corp. The premium ...