Britain’s stock market has closed at a new high tonight, as fears over a hard Brexit weigh on sterling

Christine Lagarde says quicker progress is needed in talks over Britain’s EU exit and people must be put before businessChristine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund , has said it is unimaginable that Britain would leave the EU without a deal in March 2019, as she called for faster progress in the slow-moving Brexit talks.Speaking in Washington on Thursday to mark the start of the IMF’s annual meeting, Lagarde said negotiators had to put the interests of people before those of business, and that there was a need to end uncertainty.Related: Brexit talks in 'disturbing deadlock' over divorce bill, says EU negotiatorRelated: The eurozone strikes back – why Europe is booming again Continue reading...

Lib Dems say board is ‘job-creation scheme’ for international trade secretary after it emerges he is sole official memberA new board of trade unveiled by the government has been met with derision after it was revealed that the international trade secretary, Liam Fox, is the only official member.Announcing the board on Thursday, the Department for International Trade said it would “ensure the benefits of free trade are spread throughout the UK”, naming more than a dozen advisers to the body including former ministers and business leaders. Continue reading...

This potential Tory leader needs to know why a policy that has devastated the lives of millions – a policy he still champions – causes such outrageA week ago I confronted Jacob Rees-Mogg with other protesters at a public meeting in Manchester, as part of the People’s Assembly Against Austerity’s week of action against the Tories. He is an up-and-coming figure in the Conservative party with support to be the next leader, so I am proud that I was able to convey directly to him the message of 50,000 people who had marched through Manchester the day before.I am proud that I was able to convey directly to him the message of 50,000 people who marched through ManchesterRelated: Why Jacob Rees-Mogg for Tory leader is no laughing matter | Michael Segalov Continue reading...

Economic body’s Fiscal Monitor shows Australia’s 30-year inequality growth is similar to the US, India, China and the UKAustralia is among countries with the highest growth in income inequality in the world over the past 30 years, according to the International Monetary Fund.Vitor Gaspar, the IMF’s director of fiscal affairs, has told an audience at the launch of the IMF’s latest Fiscal Monitor that Australia’s income inequality growth has been similar to the US, South Africa, India, China, Spain and the UK since the 1980s.Related: IMF tackles stalled wages growth with unusually radical thinking | Greg JerichoRelated: Income inequality in Australia: see how much the 1% earn in your area Continue reading...

While they have never been bedfellows, the IMF’s recent report supporting higher taxes for the rich will feel like an endorsement for John McDonnellTo put it mildly, the Labour party’s relationship with the International Monetary Fund has not always been a happy one.Memories of 1976, when an IMF team forced Jim Callaghan’s government to cut public spending in return for an emergency loan, are powerful to this day.Related: IMF: higher taxes for rich will cut inequality without hitting growth Continue reading...

The MSCI All-Country index is at a new peak, as Spain’s IBEX rebounds and Japan’s Nikkei hits its highest level since 1996

London and Brussels press ahead with proposal already rejected by US and other World Trade Organisation membersBritain and the EU have formally informed members of the World Trade Organisation how they plan to split up the EU’s tariff quotas and farm subsidies after Brexit in a plan already rejected by the White House.

Analysis supports tax strategy of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour in UK – and undermines that of Donald Trump in USHigher income tax rates for the rich would help reduce inequality without having an adverse impact on growth, the International Monetary Fund has said.The Washington-based IMF used its influential half-yearly fiscal monitor to demolish the argument that economic growth would suffer if governments in advanced Western countries forced the top 1% of earners to pay more tax.

The US academic’s behavioural research shows how to focus economics more decisively on real and important problems• What is behavioural economics? The winner of this year’s Nobel prize in economics, Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago, is a controversial choice. Thaler is known for his lifelong pursuit of behavioural economics (and its subfield, behavioural finance), which is the study of economics (and finance) from a psychological perspective. For some in the profession, the idea that psychological research should even be part of economics has generated hostility for years.Not from me. I find it wonderful that the Nobel Foundation chose Thaler. The economics Nobel has already been awarded to a number of people who can be classified as behavioural economists, including George Akerlof, Robert Fogel, Daniel Kahneman, Elinor Ostrom, and me. With the addition of Thaler, we now account for approximately 6% of all Nobel economics prizes ever awarded.Related: What is behavioural economics? Continue reading...

Following IMF’s World Economic Outlook, here are three scenarios for global economy in medium termFor the past few years, the global economy has been oscillating between periods of acceleration (when growth is positive and strengthening) and periods of deceleration (when growth is positive but weakening). After more than a year of acceleration, is the world heading towards another slowdown, or will the recovery persist?The current upswing in growth and equity markets has been going strong since the summer of 2016. Despite a brief hiccup after the Brexit vote, the acceleration endured not only Donald Trump’s election as US president but the heightening policy uncertainty and geopolitical chaos that he has generated. In response to this apparent resilience, the International Monetary Fund, which in recent years had characterised global growth as the “new mediocre”, upgraded its World Economic Outlook in July.Related: Won't get fooled again: IMF warning shows it's learned from past errors Continue reading...

The rupture of 2008 presents a chance to throw out our iniquitous system that busts the planet – here are some ideasWe are still living in the long 20th century. We are stuck with its redundant technologies: the internal combustion engine, thermal power plants, factory farms. We are stuck with its redundant politics: unfair electoral systems, their capture by funders and lobbyists, the failure to temper representation with real participation.And we are stuck with its redundant economics: neoliberalism, and the Keynesianism still proposed by its opponents. While the latter system worked very well for 30 years or more, it is hard to see how it can take us through this century, not least because the growth it seeks to sustain smacks headlong into the environmental crisis.Related: It's time to revive public ownership and the common good | Anne KarpfLand value tax and community right to buy help to create what I call a politics of belongingRelated: Norway’s $885bn-nil advantage in Britain’s sea of social troubles Continue reading...

‘Universal basic services’ costing about £42bn could be funded through higher taxes, say Jonathan Portes and academicsFree housing, food, transport and access to the internet should be given to British citizens in a massive expansion of the welfare state, according to a report warning the rapid advance of technology will lead to job losses.Former senior government official Jonathan Portes and Professor Henrietta Moore, director of University College London’s Institute for Global Prosperity make the call for a raft of new “universal basic services” using the same principles as the NHS. They estimate it would cost about £42bn, which could be funded by changes to the tax system.Related: OBR has finally admitted the UK's productivity hasn't bounced back | Phillip Inman Continue reading...

Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook also cautions global economic recovery may stall because of poor wages growthThe International Monetary Fund has warned the world’s richest nations to have a greater sense of urgency about climate change, a day after the former Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, delivered a bizarre speech to a London-based thinktank claiming climate change was “probably doing good”.The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook (WEO), released overnight, has dedicated an entire chapter to the impact of weather shocks and climate change on global economic activity.Related: Global economic recovery may not last, warns IMFRelated: Won't get fooled again: IMF warning shows it's learned from past errors | Larry Elliott Continue reading...

Mixed news for economy with trade gap biggest in 11 months but manufacturing and construction activity increasesThe UK’s trade position with the rest of the world worsened in August, as the weak pound failed to lift sales of goods abroad.The overall trade deficit widened to £5.6bn in August from £4.2bn in July, for the biggest gap between imports and exports in 11 months, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).Related: UK productivity estimates must be 'significantly' lowered, admits OBR Continue reading...

The big economic question now is whether capitalism in the UK is capable of generating enough gains from growthProductivity isn’t everything, observed the Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, but in the long run it is almost everything. For Britons, the worrying news is that the growth in productivity – the amount of stuff we produce every hour – has slowed to a snail’s pace. The Office for Budget Responsibility, after maintaining a sunny disposition in the face of ever darkening clouds of data, now accepts that we are unlikely to return to pre-crash levels of productivity growth. Below the OBR’s seemingly innocuous statement is the “everything” that Mr Krugman alludes to. Before the crash, we would have expected living standards to double every 40 years.If we were to carry on in the current manner, it would take more than two centuries to do so. Unless something drastic happens we face not just losing a decade, but a future.

Fund cuts UK and US growth forecasts, and also tells governments not to get complacent in its latest World Economic OutlookThe International Monetary Fund has said the global economy’s recent recovery may not last, despite a pickup in activity in all western countries except the UK.Marking the 10th anniversary of the onset of the financial crisis, the IMF said in its World Economic Outlook (WEO) there was a risk that governments could be lulled into a false sense of security by booming markets and policymakers needed to guard against complacency.Related: Won't get fooled again: IMF warning shows it's learned from past errors Continue reading...

Government’s independent forecaster says average 0.2% growth in productivity over past five years is more accurate than 1.6%The government’s independent economic forecaster has admitted it will need to “significantly” lower its estimates for the productivity of UK workers after a decade of stagnant growth since the financial crisis.

Britain imported more from the rest of the world than ever before in August, but managed to export more to Europe

A new study by neuroeconomists suggesting that women’s biology could make them a soft touch covers overly familiar gendered groundRichard Thaler has just won the Nobel prize for economics for his work explaining how human choice can be influenced. The insight that people make decisions for all sorts of reasons, not all of them based on a cool assessment of the consequences, led Professor Thaler to global acclaim as the slayer of homo economicus. Homo economicus was an entirely fictional character who decided whose turn it was to put the bin out on rational grounds. Thaler was, among his lesser achievements, David Cameron’s favourite economist, his nudge theory credited with encouraging people to stop smoking and eat more healthily.What Professor Thaler, in his moment of glory, may not yet realise is that his insights may already be on their way to extinction, just like homo economicus. He is being nudged out of the future by biology: to be precise, by neuroeconomics, which like his is an interdisciplinary science but one that studies brain activity, or the lack of it, to draw conclusions about why people behave as they do.Related: Stereotype that women are kinder and less selfish is true, claim neuroscientistsRelated: Why don't women win Nobel science prizes? | Hannah Devlin Continue reading...

The forecaster’s wishful thinking has led to an £18bn shortfall in Philip Hammond’s funds to soften the Brexit transitionThere is a moment when gamblers realise that betting on the same horse after a string of losses is hopeless.That moment has arrived at the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) after officials at the government’s economic forecaster finally gave up betting that Britain’s labour productivity was about to race to the head of the international pack.Related: UK productivity estimates must be 'significantly' lowered, admits OBR Continue reading...

Fund failed to foresee 2007 financial crisis, but this time around, it is determined not to miss signs of trouble in global economyThe International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook (WEO) runs to almost 300 pages, but it could be summed up by the title of the song with which the Who always brought their gigs to an end: Won’t Get Fooled Again.In 2007, the IMF ended up with its reputation severely tarnished after failing to notice that the global economy was about to suffer its biggest recession since the 1930s Great Depression.Related: Global economic recovery may not last, warns IMF Continue reading...

America’s 2 million truckers have long been mythologised in popular culture. But self-driving trucks are set to lay waste to one of the country’s most beloved jobs – and the fallout could be hugeJeff Baxter’s sunflower-yellow Kenworth truck shines as bright and almost as big as the sun. Four men clean the glistening cab in the hangar-like truck wash at Iowa 80, the world’s largest truck stop.Baxter has made a pitstop at Iowa 80 before picking up a 116ft-long wind turbine blade that he’s driving down to Texas, 900 miles away.Related: More than 70% of US fears robots taking over our lives, survey findsRelated: 'From heroes to villains': tech industry faces bipartisan backlash in WashingtonRelated: Rise of the robocar: are connected cars safer, or a target for hackers? Continue reading...

Economists say mistake helps support case for monetary policy committee to raise rates as early as next monthThe UK’s official statistics agency has added to the pressure on the Bank of England over whether to raise interest rates as soon as next month after admitting it underestimated the pace of rising labour costs.

Readers react to criticism of the Treasury by leavers including Bernard Jenkin. Plus responses to John Harris and Dick TaverneCritics of Brexit have focused on the damage it will do to our economy, but there is a greater damage and that is the threat it poses to our democratic system. In a democracy dissent must be allowed and the voice of the opposition must be heard. Brexiters, rather than listen to the dissenters, seek to silence them. The abuse directed at Philip Hammond by leavers (Tory Brexiters turn their fire on Treasury, 9 October) suggests that they are unwilling to engage with the difficult reality of the negotiations; they just seek to suppress the uncomfortable facts.What we instead see is the encroachment of Orwell’s newspeak on the political dialogue: bad news is turned into good, the message in the media should be encouraging, inconvenient awkward facts about the costs of Brexit should be ignored and replaced by the warm words spoken about Brexit by such as James Dyson. One positive message from Dyson is more credible than the collective expressed anxieties of the CBI and the City. They seem to wish to control the political debate so that when the Brexit begins to have significant negative impact on the economy, both the media and Westminster remain on message, and so that when the negative effects of Brexit impact on people’s income, the media story will be one about wicked Europeans doing the British down that will absolve our political leaders from any blame for the post-Brexit economic mess.

Pioneer of behavioural economics is best known for ‘nudge’ theory, which has influenced politicians and policymakers• What is behavioural economics?One of the founding fathers of “nudge” theory, which has helped boost British tax receipts and encouraged smokers to become vapers, has been awarded the 2017 Nobel prize for economics.Richard Thaler co-wrote a bestselling book on the nudge concept read by politicians around the world and soon had them embracing the notion that people can be influenced by prompts – such as changing the wording of tax demands – to alter their behaviour.Related: What is behavioural economics? Continue reading...

After US academic Richard Thaler wins Nobel prize in economics for pioneering work, we take a closer look at his field• Richard Thaler wins Nobel prize in economicsBehavioural economics incorporates the study of psychology into the analysis of the decision-making behind an economic outcome, such as the factors leading up to a consumer buying one product instead of another.The US academic Richard Thaler won the Nobel prize in economics on Monday for his pioneering work in this field. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awarded the £845,000 prize, praised Thaler for incorporating psychological assumptions into analyses of economic decision-making. Continue reading...

Weak pound, higher inflation and Brexit uncertainty likely to be behind fall in overseas spending, says UK FinanceDebit cards are being used less often abroad because the fall in the pound after the EU referendum has encouraged more Britons to holiday in the UK, the banking industry has claimed.UK Finance, the financial sector trade body, said staycations helped explain why activity on debit cards overseas was 13% lower this August than a year ago. Since the UK voted to leave the EU in June 2016 the pound has fallen 11% against the dollar and 14% against the euro, making it more expensive for UK-based holidaymakers to take foreign holidays.Related: Brexit transition deal needed by Christmas, says Bank official Continue reading...

Professor of behavioural sciences and economics at University of Chicago given annual economics award

The cryptocurrency is up 1,600% in two years – but state efforts to remove its near-anonymity will undermine its popularityIs the cryptocurrency bitcoin the biggest bubble in the world today, or a great investment bet on the cutting edge of new-age financial technology? My best guess is that in the long run, the technology will thrive, but that the price of bitcoin will collapse.If you haven’t been following the bitcoin story, its price is up 600% over the past 12 months, and 1,600% in the past 24 months. At over $4,200 (as of 5 October), a single unit of the virtual currency is now worth more than three times an ounce of gold. Some bitcoin evangelists see it going far higher in the next few years.Related: Warnings grow louder over cryptocurrency as valuations soarRelated: Introducing the new celebrity accessory: bitcoin-style cryptocurrencies Continue reading...

Academics who could be in running for prestigious award include those working on price bubbles, productivity and corporate financeThe former governor of the Reserve Bank of India and a string of American academics are among potential candidates for the Nobel prize for economics, due to be announced on Monday in Stockholm.The 9m Swedish kronor (£848,091) prize is not among the Nobel Foundation’s official awards for literature, peace, medicine, physics and chemistry but was established separately by Sweden’s central bank, Sveriges Riksbank, in memory of the Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel.Related: The Nobel prize in economics takes too little account of social democracy | Avner OfferRelated: Don’t let the Nobel prize fool you. Economics is not a science | Joris Luyendijk Continue reading...

Soft neoliberalism has exhausted its appeal. The best progressive alternative is an explicit embrace of socialismSocialism is back, much to the chagrin of those who declared it dead and buried at the “end of history” in the 1990s. When the New Republic, long the house organ of American neoliberalism, runs an article on The Socialism America Needs Now, it’s clear that something has fundamentally changed.The soft neoliberalism represented by Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and Paul Keating has exhausted its appeal, and not just in the English-speaking world. Throughout Europe, new movements of the left have emerged to challenge or displace social democratic parties discredited by the austerity politics of the last decade.Related: 'The S-word': how young Americans fell in love with socialismThe traditional notion of full employment, focused on full-time jobs for male breadwinners, is no longer adequateRelated: It's not new to accuse Labor of socialism but this panicked attack is threadbare | Greg JerichoRelated: Am I a socialist? You asked Google – here’s the answer | Zoe WilliamsRelated: Neoliberalism: the idea that swallowed the worldIn the aftermath of neoliberal failure, some utopian vision is what is neededRelated: 'Something big has to change': could Australia afford a universal basic income?Related: What if we could stop exploiting people and cut unemployment at a stroke? | Phil McDuff Continue reading...

The IMF is seen as a hand-wringing liberal institution making nuanced and technical suggestions in an age of broad-brush solutionsChristine Lagarde, boss of the International Monetary Fund, is expected to deliver a hard-hitting speech at the organisation’s annual meeting this week, urging world leaders to push ahead with reforms to turn the current global economic recovery into something more sustainable.Lagarde, who is now in her second four-year term as managing director of the Washington-based lender of last resort, will talk about a lack of education, training and productivity. She will, no doubt, develop the argument she put forward in London a fortnight ago that regulators need to be wary of lenders outside the mainstream repeating the same errors as the banks a decade ago. Continue reading...

Chancellor goes before Treasury select committee with fading chance to hit budget targets and under pressure to ease off on austerityPhilip Hammond faces the Treasury select committee on Wednesday in his first appearance since June’s general election. There will be plenty for the chancellor to talk about.Reports suggest the Office for Budgetary Responsibility will downgrade its forecasts on Tuesday, making it harder for Hammond to hit his budget targets. The fiscal watchdog appears to have accepted that its estimates for productivity growth have been consistently over-optimistic. Productivity, or output per hour, stagnated in the three months to June, official figures showed on Friday. Continue reading...

It’s had control of monetary policy for 20 years but, if the government persists with leaving the EU, governor Mark Carney only has the power to limit the inevitable damage this will do to our economyIn common with Sir John Major, Denis Healey, the Bank of England’s historian David Kynaston, and former governor (1983-93) Robin Leigh-Pemberton, I had great reservations about the granting of independence to the Bank.By independence – more precisely “operational independence” – was meant control of monetary policy: giving the Bank the power to change interest rates, as opposed to merely offering advice to chancellors and prime ministers that could be ignored.Related: Is the Bank of England losing its way? Continue reading...

Only the few benefit from unrestrained capitalismI found the collection of comments on capitalism last Sunday fascinating (“Is capitalism at a crossroads?”, In Focus). The contribution by Ruth Lea represents the sort of thing we are likely to hear from the Conservatives at the next election. It’s so full of unsupported statements (“sound management of the public finances”? Oh, please) it would be difficult to know where to start, but, shouted loudly enough, it will certainly resonate with many people on the right.However, there are a few simple, commonsense truths we should keep in mind. First, Labour is not planning to abolish capitalism. Attempts to do that in the last century were disastrous failures and North Korea and Venezuela continue to provide stark warnings. But capitalism is a necessary answer for the efficient production of wealth, not a sufficient one. Continue reading...

SEC files seen by the Guardian show that in 2017, money manager State Street rejected shareholder proposals to tackle gender inequality at least 12 timesIn March, State Street Global Advisors unveiled Fearless Girl, a statue of a young girl confronting the charging Wall Street bull. It became an instant cultural touchstone.Related: Fearless Girl company discriminated against women by underpaying themFight like a girl. pic.twitter.com/qGTn46jS9WMen who don’t like women taking up space are exactly why we need the Fearless Girl. https://t.co/D2OZl4ituJ Continue reading...

Non-farm payrolls fell by 33,000 last month as Hurricanes Harvey and Irma triggered a record drop in employment in the hospitality and leisure sectors

Slower economic growth is likely in the next few years, and it’s going to harm living standards. The chancellor should stock up on headache tabletsThe news that the government’s independent fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, is about to slash its forecasts should not have come as a surprise. The chancellor’s fiscal plans were based on forecasts dating back to March this year and already looked to be, once again, too optimistic. The IMF, the OECD and, most notably, the Bank of England, have already sounded a more pessimistic tone and, to an extent, this is just the OBR playing catch up.But even if the news isn’t exactly unexpected, it is still a political headache for the chancellor, and perhaps goes some way to explaining the modesty of the giveaways at this week’s Conservative conference. In his autumn statement of 2016, Philip Hammond relaxed the fiscal rules and gave himself plenty of room for manoeuvre, but that space is now vanishing, just when the political pressure for higher spending is on the rise.Productivity estimates rarely feature in a chancellor’s budget day speech, even as one of the most important variablesRelated: UK economy may not withstand interest rate rise – S&P Continue reading...

OBR also expected to cut productivity forecasts, wiping out about two-thirds of chancellor’s £26bn budget ‘war chest’The productivity of UK workers fell in the three months to June, piling pressure on the chancellor, Philip Hammond, before his budget next month.Despite increasing numbers of hours put in by workers, labour productivity as measured by output per hour fell by 0.1% in the three months to June, according to the Office for National Statistics. That continues a fall started earlier this year, albeit at a slower pace, from the 0.5% drop recorded in the three months to March.Related: Labour has a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and the Tories know it | Larry Elliott Continue reading...

Exclusive: Bjarni Benediktsson, current Iceland leader, sold millions of króna of Glitnir assets before state took control in 2008

An interest hike looks increasingly risky amid fears over motoring loans and diesel power and uncertainty over a Brexit dealThe 9.3% fall in new car registrations in September – a figure even weaker than expected – is alarming. September is the second-biggest month in the car trade and it is now odds-on that registrations will fall in 2017 for the first time in six years.One can argue all day about usefulness of car sales as a barometer of general economic confidence, but the figures usually crop up in the discussions of the Bank of England’s rate-setting monetary policy committee. They matter. Continue reading...

Britain is motoring towards its first drop in annual car sales since 2011, after suffering a 9% drop in registrations last month

Firms with presence in UK must make provisions for hard exit. Anything else is naive, warns trade chiefGerman firms operating in the UK must brace themselves for a “very hard Brexit”, the Federation of German Industries has warned, as it called on its members to take precautions or be prepared to face heavy economic losses.

People are ready for a radical change. Trying to brand Corbyn a Marxist throwback who wants to turn Britain into Venezuela won’t workJim Callaghan would have had some sympathy for Theresa May as she struggled with her croaky voice and the prankster handing her a mock P45. Back in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher was on the brink of power, the then Labour prime minister summed up what it was like to feel authority slipping away. “There are times, perhaps once every 30 years, when there is a sea change in politics,” Callaghan said. “It then does not matter what you say or what you do. There is a shift in what the public wants and what it approves of.”Related: Theresa May’s conference speech: the verdict | The panelRelated: Why Theresa May’s pledges won’t fix the UK’s housing disaster | Matt Wilde Continue reading...

Ratings agency issues warning after surveys show businesses have not recovered from weak first half of yearThe ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has warned that Britain’s economy may not be strong enough to support an interest rate rise following hints from policymakers that there could be an increase in the cost of borrowing next month.S&P said it was sceptical that the Bank of England could justify a rate rise after recent business surveys showed an expected recovery from a weak first half of the year had failed to materialise. Continue reading...

The Republicans’ proposals dodge necessary changes and will leave the country with a mountain of debtHaving failed to “repeal and replace” the 2010 Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), Donald Trump’s administration and the Republican congressional majority have now moved on to tax reform. Eight months after assuming office, the administration has been able to offer only an outline of what it has in mind. But what we know is enough to feel a deep sense of alarm.Tax policy should reflect a country’s values and address its problems. And today, the United States – and much of the world – confronts four central problems: widening income inequality, growing job insecurity, climate change and anaemic productivity growth. America faces, in addition, the need to rebuild its decaying infrastructure and strengthen its underperforming primary and secondary education system.Related: The great unwinding: Fed begins slow demise of its post-crash stimulus Continue reading...

Sector reports modest growth in September but confidence almost at its weakest since the end of 2011Britain’s services sector expanded at a “modest” pace last month as mounting concerns about the impact of Brexit dampened orders and hit business confidence.Service sector companies reported strong consumer spending had underpinned expansion while orders from other businesses had fallen back to leave overall new sales growth at the slowest pace since August 2016.Related: Lending to UK firms at risk after Brexit, Bank of England warns Continue reading...

Central bank attempts to prevent creation of new eurozone debt pile by making it more expensive to hold problem loansThe European Central Bank is attempting to put a lid on the near €1tn (£886bn) of bad debts stored in eurozone banks by asking lenders to be more prudent about the way they handle new customers falling behind on repayments.The Frankfurt-based institution issued guidance on Wednesday intended to stop a new pile of problem debts being built up inside eurozone banks by setting out how much cash it wanted lenders to set aside for bad debts incurred from January 2018.Related: Why central banks are not hitting their 2% inflation target | Nouriel Roubini Continue reading...

International organisation joins Bank of England in voicing concern over high levels of household borrowingThe International Monetary Fund has issued a warning to governments that rely on debt-fuelled consumer spending to boost economic growth, telling them they run the risk of another major financial collapse.In a report before the IMF’s annual meeting in Washington next week, it said analysis of consumer spending and levels of household debt showed that economies benefited in the first two to three years when households raised their levels of borrowing, but then risks began to mount.