The Treasury's stablecoin rule extends U.S. jurisdiction extraterritorially, with fines up to $1 million per violation.

The Treasury's proposed rule under the GENIUS Act restricts U.S. payment stablecoin issuance to permitted issuers and compliant digital asset service providers, with extraterritorial reach. The rule defines 'issue' as the first transfer of a stablecoin by the issuer that gives a third party rights, and clarifies that issuers can also be digital asset service providers, closing a potential loophole. This prevents evasion of the Act's prohibitions, which carry fines up to $1 million per violation and five years' imprisonment for knowing participation.

The proposal exempts direct transfers between individuals, transfers between an individual's own accounts, and wallet custody transactions. Foreign issuers may be exempt if subject to a comparable regulatory regime and registered with the OCC. The rule is intended to apply extraterritorially when conduct involves offering or selling to a U.S. person. Treasury rejected applying securities laws like Regulation S, arguing the Act's distinction and the goal of cross-border payment efficiency would be frustrated by traditional investment rules.

For markets, the rule could shift demand toward U.S. Treasuries as the primary reserve asset for compliant stablecoins, as non-permitted issuers backed by non-U.S. assets are prohibited. The mechanism: the prohibition reduces supply of non-compliant stablecoins, potentially increasing demand for U.S. Treasuries held by permitted issuers. Comments are due by October 19, 2026.

The SEC proposed Regulation Crypto Assets, creating two registration exemptions: a startup exemption for offerings up to $5 million over four years and a fundraising exemption for up to $75 million per 12-month period, plus a conditional safe harbor from the 'investment contract' definition. This is a change of behaviour: the SEC, which has policed crypto offerings under existing securities laws, now offers a tailored path for issuers to raise capital in the US. The 60-day comment period opens the rule to industry feedback, and the exemptions could shift crypto fundraising from offshore venues back to US markets, affecting liquidity and pricing of digital assets.

Japan's widening wage-productivity gap since the late 1990s stems from downward nominal wage rigidity interacting with deflation and a labor-market emphasis on job security. Using worker-level microdata from the Basic Survey on Wage Structure (1989–2024, ~45.2 million samples), the paper finds both upward and downward nominal wage rigidity, with upward rigidity becoming more influential during the deflationary period. The proportion of workers facing upward rigidity peaked at 7% in the early 2000s, while downward rigidity peaked at 4%; in the early 1990s, both were less than 1%.

A calibrated heterogeneous-firm general equilibrium model shows that higher trend inflation and a higher separation elasticity (less job security emphasis) would raise both real wages and aggregate productivity through improved labor reallocation. Increasing steady-state inflation from 0% to 2% raises both macro wages and macro productivity; decreasing it to -1% lowers them. An increase in separation elasticity from 1.4 to 1.6 (returning to 1990s level) raises real wages substantially but has a relatively small positive effect on macro productivity.

The empirical analysis using matched worker-firm data confirms that more productive firms have higher employment growth, but this relationship weakens when the share of wage freezes is high. The model-implied aggregate gap between marginal revenue product of labor and wages widened over time, consistent with Aoki et al. (2023). The positive effects of higher trend inflation should not be interpreted as monotone; sufficiently high inflation may raise price adjustment costs and offset allocative gains. For the Bank of Japan's 2% inflation target, achieving it could raise real wages and aggregate productivity by reducing the cost of downward nominal wage rigidity and improving labor reallocation across firms.

The overall yield on listed German federal securities rose to 3.16% on August 11, 2026, up from 2.56% in July 2025, a 60-basis-point increase over the year. The 10-year Bund yield reached 3.20%, while the 30-year yield climbed to 3.69%. Shorter maturities also rose: the 5-year Bundesobligationen yield stood at 2.93%, and yields on bonds with remaining maturities of 3-5 years hit 2.86%. The monthly average overall yield for July 2026 was 3.12%, up from 2.56% a year earlier.

These yields are calculated as circulating yields (Umlaufsrendite) for federal bonds and obligations with original maturity over four years and remaining maturity over three years, based on Bundesbank reference prices from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Individual bond yields are weighted by market-value circulating amounts, and the bond set is updated monthly. The rise reflects tighter financing conditions for the German government, increasing the cost of new debt issuance and raising interest expenditures, which could pressure fiscal policy. The yield curve remains steep, with the 30-year yield 49 basis points above the 10-year, suggesting long-term inflation or term premium concerns.

MAS Deputy Chairman Chee Hong Tat, speaking at the book launch for Piyush Gupta's 'Singapore's Financial Sector', said the Equity Markets Development Programme (EQDP) has been expanded from S$5 billion to S$6.5 billion, with an additional S$1.5 billion from the Budget. The Growth Capital Workgroup is examining ways to strengthen the growth capital ecosystem. The expansion, hidden in the launch remarks, signals fiscal support for equity market development; the channel to bond markets runs through the increased state-backed capital available for listings, which could shift issuance patterns. The details sit in the MAS deputy chairman's speech transcript; a follow-up would be the Growth Capital Workgroup's recommendations, expected later this year.