A report on New Zealand by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development supports key elements of the Labour and Green parties’ policies for making the economy grow faster and distribute wealth more fairly. Its two-yearly review of the economy recommends a capital gains tax, permanent deposit insurance for banks that are “too big to fail” and raising the age …

The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced, boosted by shares of Merck and Intel, though disappointing manufacturing data kept a lid on gains. Shares of Merck, last up 4.1 percent, bolstered the Dow as one of the company’s new cancer drugs showed promising results in an early study. Shares of Intel also advanced, last up 3.1 percent, after a FBR Capital …

Transpower, the state-owned electricity grid company, has sold its d-cyphaTrade unit to Australian stock market operator ASX for A$55 million. Transpower set up d-cyphaTrade in 2002. It promotes Australian exchange-traded electricity futures and then sells related training and information products. It had income of $10.4 million in 2012, down from $12.7 million a year earlier. “d-cyphaTrade and its future development …