archiveWealth

"The stock market is not the economy" is a common refrain. The thinking goes that while losses in the stock market may hurt Wall Street investors, Main Street is the real backbone of the economy. While that may be true, stocks are an important psychological lever and there is a threshold for losses, beyond which the pain in the market can spill over and hurt consumer spending. That's the thinking that underpins the concept of the "wealth effect," or the idea that rising and falling asset values have a material...

Inefficient investments continue to be a drain on the economy, and debt-laden local governments need to ensure that the projects they back are actually needed in their communities.That was the message state-owned Economic Daily delivered in a commentary on Sunday as it put its weight behind national efforts to stimulate domestic demand.Written under the pen name Jin Guanping, the commentary said the incremental capital output ratio had risen from 2.84 in 2008 to 9.44 in 2023. The ratio is a key measure of investment efficiency where a lower value indicates...