Finance & economics
Severed from reality?
China meets its official growth target. Not everyone is convinced
For one thing, 2024 saw the second-weakest rise in nominal GDP since the 1970s
Ring hollow
Ethiopia gets a stockmarket. Now it just needs some firms to list
The country is no longer the most populous without a bourse
Buttonwood
Why catastrophe bonds are failing to cover disaster damage
The innovative form of insurance is reaching its limits
Free exchange
“The Traitors”, a reality TV show, offers a useful economics lesson
It is a finite, sequential, incomplete information game
It’s all about bucks
Will Donald Trump unleash Wall Street?
Bankers have plenty of reason to be hopeful
Mullahs cornered
Iran is vulnerable to a Trumpian all-out economic assault
Oil prices are already at a five-month high
Up in flames
The Los Angeles fires will be extraordinarily expensive
They will also expose California’s faulty insurance market
Falling stars
Europe could be torn apart by new divisions
The continent is at its most vulnerable in decades
Buttonwood
How corporate bonds fell out of fashion
The market is at its hottest in years—and a shadow of its former self
Free exchange
An American purchase of Greenland could be the deal of the century
The economics of buying new territory