Our thinking about productivity is cockeyed, according to a new economic report. We’re ignoring the real productivity problem: surging costs for health care, housing and education. We need to understand this argument, because it just might be correct. Unless you’ve been vacationing on Mars, you know that productivity is the catchword for economic efficiency — and also that we’re ...

  Simply holding still shows backbone when other Polish institutions are under siege. By sticking with its longest policy pause in almost two decades, the National Bank of Poland is winning over the biggest doubters of the country’s course after the Law & Justice party’s sweep into power last year. S&P Global Ratings, which in January handed the sovereign its ...

Congress has voted to change the way new prescription drugs are approved, in a way that could endanger patients. The deal now under consideration contains a sweetener for lawmakers who might be wary of such a change (Democrats, that is): substantially increased funding for medical research. It’s very effective politics, but not necessarily good policy. The bill in question would ...

  British parliamentarians voted 448 to 75 to endorse Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan to trigger Brexit talks by the end of March. The MPs also secured the right to scrutinize her negotiating plan first. The debate in the House of Commons continued for six hours before the voting. The vote is not legally binding. But it is politically significant ...

  Those who support aggressive action to reduce greenhouse gases fear that the Donald Trump administration will undo all or most of President Barack Obama’s climate change initiatives. But those fears are probably unwarranted. A good guess, based on a close look at the regulations that matter most, is that the Obama administration’s work on climate is more secure than ...

  Economists and investors wondering how much longer they will have to wait before fallout from June’s Brexit vote appears in the data may get their answer soon. While much has been made of the resilience of the UK economy, with GDP data and PMI readings beating expectations while unemployment continues to fall, the tide may be turning on the ...

  With free trade under fire from the incoming administration and under question from many other quarters, it is U.S. trade relations with China and Mexico that have been getting the most attention and criticism. That makes sense, given that those are two of this country’s three biggest trading partners — and the third is Canada, which is hard to ...

  MOSCOW / AP Commodities giant Glencore and Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund have together acquired a 19.5 percent stake in Russia’s top state-controlled oil company, Rosneft, in a deal worth 10.5 billion euros ($11.3 billion), officials said. The long-planned sale is part of the Russian government’s efforts to sell some state assets to help balance the budget amid a two-year ...

  Bloomberg One of the biggest engines soaking up the world’s oil is starting to sputter. Growth in crude imports by China, the second largest consumer after the US, will probably slow by more than 60 percent in 2017, according to a Bloomberg survey of analysts including FGE and Energy Aspects Ltd. Private refiners that helped boost purchases to record ...

  Bloomberg Egypt’s urban consumer prices rose the fastest in eight years in November, driven by a 21.5 percent increase in food costs after the government floated the currency and raised fuel prices. Annual urban inflation accelerated to 19.4 percent, while monthly inflation climbed to 4.8 percent, according to the state-run statistics agency CAPMAS. The annual rate was the highest ...