Columns

Holding: Company babysitters get deserved spanking

18 October 2018

The U.S. Justice Department will cut back on hiring monitors for corporate wrongdoers. Trusted to keep Citi, Apple and others in line, these super-nannies often turn into meddlers fond of excessive oversight and fees. Policing business misconduct is too important to outsource.

Hadas: Beware of the curse of financial markets

17 October 2018

In theory, movements in bond and stock prices have big economic effects. In practice, the ties are fairly tenuous. But the widespread belief that these minor and inaccurate indicators are valuable is enough to give them power. A bad week in the markets can do real economic harm.

Cox: Global finance has a Saudi Arabia problem

14 October 2018

Wall Street bosses and their European and Japanese peers are reconsidering next week’s “Davos in the Desert.” Like China, there’s money at stake. Unlike Russia there’s no guidance from above. A coordinated pullout following Jamie Dimon’s withdrawal is their least-bad option.

Hadas: Nobel rewards pointless economic modelling

8 October 2018

Paul Romer won half the 2018 prize for recognising that education and governments help growth. William Nordhaus won the other half for condemning man-made climate change. Obvious? Maybe, but their work has complex equations. Unfortunately, these obscure more than they clarify.

Cox: Wooing of GE is lesson for wannabe Amazon HQs

4 October 2018

Lured by inducements and hangars for its CEO’s jets, the group quit Connecticut in 2016 for Boston. GE has since incinerated over $150 bln of value and shed businesses, leaving less for its new home. Yet it continues to inflame politics in the place it left. Bezos buyers beware.

Hadas: Why houses are not like pigs

3 October 2018

Farmers respond to high pork prices, so the hog cycle keeps turning. It’s different for housing. An excess of money, not a shortage of buildings, usually turns prices upwards. And the cycle reverses when the money runs out, sometimes because lenders take fright at new supply.

Holding: Dell deal’s high hurdles include the law

26 September 2018

The PC maker risks getting sued by owners of VMware tracking stock if it pushes through a $22 bln share swap. Yet recent Delaware decisions about the rights of similar shares offer a novel defense. The planned transaction could test legal limits as well as investor patience.

Hadas: China makes offers that cannot be refused

25 September 2018

The Vatican is the latest global powerhouse to try conditional surrender as a strategy for entering the world’s most promising market. Google may be next. Outsiders cannot crush the brittle but strong Chinese system. They can hope that slow-acting soft power brings changes.

Hadas: Economists trapped in pre-crisis fogs

19 September 2018

The 2008 crash proved professionals can deal with a big bank failure. Other questions raised by the slump remain open: Are hedge funds and derivatives evil? What drives inflation? Are big current-account deficits dangerous? Why has the recovery been so slow? No one really knows.

Chancellor: The legacy of ultralow interest rates

10 September 2018

This first in a series of "Ten Years After" essays argues the bold monetary experiment that followed Lehman’s demise unleashed speculative manias, carry trades, populism born of inequality, capital misallocation and a China bubble that pose grave threats to the financial system.