It’s hard to find controlled experiments in finance. But they exist. East and West Germany, North and South Korea, Chile and Venezuela. In crossing a border, you can immediately see the difference in economic output and financial well-being from one country to the next, based on variations in tax and regulatory policy. The same goes for within the United States ...

The stock market is at a record high. Investors are chasing a handful of hot stocks. Geopolitical tensions threaten to upend the rally. I’m referring, of course, to 1972. The S&P 500 Index closed at a record high of 119.12 on December 11. It was the height of the Nifty Fifty (not to be confused with the Nifty 50 Index ...

The real loser in Catalonia’s referendum was, of course, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. He needs to make sure that his country’s bond market doesn’t follow suit. The regional election he demanded resulted in the three separatist parties winning 70 out of the 135 seats. But the pro-independence parties did not win an overall majority of votes, and forming a ...

This year brought us no shortage of harbingers of the so-called retail apocalypse. Mega-chains such as Toys ‘R’ Us Inc., Payless ShoeSource, and Hhgregg filed for bankruptcy. The likes of Sears Holdings Corp., Gap Inc. and Gymboree announced they were shuttering hundreds of locations. And the stocks of certain mall mainstays were crushed as their futures looked increasingly dim. All ...

What is bitcoin good for? This may be a question you’ve asked yourself, looking at the recent run-up in prices. Why, exactly, would you want to pay $18,000 and change to get your hands on one? I myself have been asking that question. Is bitcoin in a bubble? Or do all those folks who are eagerly snapping it up know ...

In a year of economic surprises, mostly good ones, Japan is right up there. The decades since the country’s asset bubble burst in the early 1990s have seen many false dawns, so no one was rushing to call this a new day. But it’s time. A fair number of economists are now forecasting that the Bank of Japan will begin ...

The European Court of Justice has ruled, without the possibility of appeal, that Uber is a taxi company, not a software one. This is the official beginning of the end of the tech industry’s deceitful attempt to present its innovation as something outside previous human experience and therefore outside the scope of previous regulation. The ruling ends a legal battle ...

Bloomberg South Africa’s ruling party has ratified a proposal for the state rather than private shareholders to own the central bank. Delegates at the African National Congress’s elective conference in Johannesburg decided that the government should own 100 percent of the Reserve Bank, Enoch Godongwana, the head of the party’s economic transformation committee, told reporters in Johannesburg. The conference didn’t ...

Bloomberg Ukraine’s Privatbank, which was nationalised last year, said a UK court froze $2.5 billion of its ex-owners’ assets as the government seeks to recoup its bailout of the nation’s No. 1 lender. Justice Christopher Nugee in the UK High Court granted a worldwide freezing order against billionaires Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov, including six companies they’re believed to own ...

BENGHAZI / Reuters Libya’s eastern-based parliament approved a new central bank governor on Tuesday, deputies said, cementing financial divisions as the country grapples with political turmoil and economic crisis. Libya, an oil producer, has two governments as a result of a power struggle waged since the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 — a UN-backed government in Tri-poli and an ...