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The usual Brexit disclaimer — the UK has no good options, only less-bad ones — applies with extra force when it comes to the dilemma over the Irish border. Nevertheless, the issue will be easier to address, if not resolve, once the UK and European Union start trade negotiations in earnest. There is currently no physical border between Northern Ireland, ...

Before the six-member committee that sets monetary policy for the Reserve Bank of India met this week, the government in New Delhi made its preferences very clear. Two members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s economic advisory council—a body that he did without for a long time, but which was recently reconstituted following several policy stumbles—publicly declared that real interest rates ...

The case of the missing inflation is unresolved, but the fiscal file may have been solved. Good news: The victim is still alive and might start kicking as well. Fiscal policy is shaping up for a good 2018. The impetus mostly takes the form of tax cuts, and is coming from Asia, Europe and the US. We have grown so ...

Matt Bruenig of the People’s Policy Project recently wrote an article in The New York Times suggesting a policy idea that seems extremely promising and woefully overlooked. That idea is what Bruenig calls a social wealth fund—a government-owned portfolio of stocks, bonds and real estate whose dividends would be paid out directly to the citizenry. This is similar to what ...

Bloomberg As automakers turn their vehicles into app-laden computers on wheels, there’s one habit they don’t want to acquire from Silicon Valley: fighting over patents in court. Manufacturers from BMW AG to Hyundai Motor Co. to Ford Motor Co. are trying to learn from the smartphone wars, which cost technology companies hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees, as ...

Bloomberg Porsche AG, its name synonymous with sports cars, is gaining traction in the shift to electric autos. The Volkswagen AG unit said 60 percent of buyers of its revamped Panamera four-door coupe opted for the partly battery-powered version from its sales start in June through October. The brand is now rolling out the vehicle in China and the US, ...

Bloomberg Self-driving vehicles will be ready to roll next year, though the work to make them affordable to individual consumers is still “in the first inning,” according to the CEO of a company working on the technology. Initial autonomous auto customers will be businesses deploying delivery vehicles and robot taxis, said Kevin Clark, the chief executive officer of Delphi Automotive ...

Bloomberg Banks emerged relatively unscathed from global regulators’ final batch of post-crisis capital rules, with few lenders needing to raise major new funds. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision on December 7 issued new rules on how banks estimate the risk of mortgages, loans and other assets. The compromise, reached after fierce lobbying by the industry, will cause “no significant ...

Bloomberg The People’s Bank of China will refrain from raising open-market interest rates even if the US Federal Reserve decides to increase borrowing costs next week, according to a Bloomberg survey. More than 80 percent of 32 economists, analysts and traders said that the PBOC will maintain its current rates on reverse-repurchase agreements, which guide the cost of funding in ...

Bloomberg Nordea Bank AB will approach about 500 employees in Finland as it starts acting on a program announced in October to cut thousands of jobs. The biggest Nordic bank will ax about 420 jobs and move another 50 to Estonia and Poland, Nordea said on its website. The reductions are equivalent to about 6 percent of its workforce in ...