Davos Kickoff, Modernizing ECB, Phase-One Tests: Eco Day

(Bloomberg) -- Welcome to Monday, Europe. Here’s the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help you start the day and week:

• As global elites descend on Davos for their annual gathering, up for debate is whether some of the big themes of our time, including globalization and cars, will hit their peak in the 2020s
• Also in Davos, an Oxfam report showed the world’s richest 1% have more than twice the wealth of the rest of humanity combined, and how governments are “massively under-taxing” rich individuals and corporations, and under-funding public services
• The organizers of the annual Davos gathering separately warned that global inequality is going to worsen unless governments do more to ensure those most affected by rapid technological change aren’t just cast aside and forgotten
  • That sets the tone for governments to play a more active role in steering economies through the big challenges of the coming decade, from global warming and inequality to the great-power race for a technological edge
• Christine Lagarde is preparing to modernize the European Central Bank. The process will include questioning the ECB’s inflation goal and addressing topics including inequality, technology and climate change
• A Bank of England rate cut still could be in the offing even if key economic numbers show improvement this week
• The U.K. economy won’t stay close to the European Union after Brexit, the U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer says
• The risk of a reversal in progress agreed to under the U.S.-China phase-one deal is keeping prospects for the Chinese economy in check
• Shipping gauges on Bloomberg’s Trade Tracker show global trade could be losing steam, ahead of a Lunar New Year period that will wreak havoc on the data
• The Bank of Japan, one of several with imminent central banking decisions, is likely to keep policy unchanged at this week’s meeting, Bloomberg Economics reckons

To contact the reporter on this story: Michelle Jamrisko in Singapore at mjamrisko@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nasreen Seria at nseria@bloomberg.net, Karthikeyan Sundaram, Devidutta Tripathy

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