Scandinavia’s Challenge, Draghi’s Last Plea, Tory Tax: Eco Day

(Bloomberg) --

Welcome to Friday, Europe. Here’s the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help get you through to the weekend:

• Scandinavia is offering a fresh case study in how even the world’s richest countries can struggle to measure their own economies
• Mario Draghi’s tenure as ECB president ended with an impassioned plea for policy makers to stop airing differences in public and display a united front in the fight to revive inflation
• Boris Johnson’s Conservatives will introduce a land tax surcharge for foreign buyers of U.K. homes in an effort to damp demand, keep a lid on house prices and make it easier for first-time buyers
• Some at Poland’s central bank don’t want to join the global push toward looser monetary policy, despite almost five years of record-low borrowing costs in the European Union’s biggest eastern economy
• One of President Donald Trump’s most recent picks for the Federal Reserve has challenged an article of faith regarding the U.S. central bank: that it should operate free of political influence
• China’s top trade negotiator weighed into the debate about how much of China’s economy is government controlled, addressing a point of ongoing tension with the U.S.
• China’s gross domestic product was more than $270 billion larger than first estimated last year, a revision that added the equivalent of Finland’s output to the world’s second-largest economy
• Narendra Modi is putting India’s flagging economy back on center stage after announcing the biggest privatization drive in more than a decade and making renewed attempts to ring fence the crisis-ridden shadow banking sector

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael S. Arnold in Singapore at marnold48@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nasreen Seria at nseria@bloomberg.net, Michael S. Arnold, Jiyeun Lee

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