Was Larry Summers right after all? Around the world, governments are planning fresh spending to boost growth and support wages, heeding the advice of the Harvard University economist and others who have argued that economies need the jolt as society ages and productivity sags, Bloomberg News reported. That’s signaling the ascendancy of energizers like Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and the firing of austerity advocates such as former U.K. Chancellor George Osborne. The shift away from budget rigor and reliance on monetary policy has been subtle and isn’t universal.

Mahathir Mohamad has attacked Singapore’s handling of alleged money-laundering linked to Malaysian state investment fund 1MDB. In an interview with the Financial Times, Malaysia’s influential former prime minister accused Singapore of failing to target the protagonists in what is alleged to be a global scheme to siphon off more than $3.5bn from the fund. “Notice that the government of Singapore is very reluctant to pinpoint the people involved in this corruption,” Mr Mahathir said. “It affects Singapore’s reputation as a financial centre. It is not doing the right thing.

Two key gauges of Chinese factory output in July showed conflicting results, with one that focuses on larger state-owned companies flagging and the other, on smaller private companies, soaring, The Wall Street Journal reported. The National Bureau of Statistics said Monday that the official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index dipped into negative territory for the first time in five months, to 49.9 last month from 50.0 in June. It fell short of many economists’ expectations.

The Bank of Japan may have begun to retreat from its “whatever it takes” policy stance, effectively shifting pressure to the government to use fiscal spending and structural changes to help revive the economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. The central bank announced only a modest dose of monetary stimulus Friday, disappointing investors who expected a bolder move to complement a new government spending package. That alone was taken as confirmation by many economists that the BOJ has run up against the limits of monetary policy.

Chronically low oil prices are disrupting a critical financial lifeline across Asia and depriving economies of much-needed hard currency, The Wall Street Journal reported. The flow of cash, or remittances, from Asian citizens working in the Gulf soared when the price of oil was high, boosting growth across the board. The billions of dollars in annual inflows paid for necessities such as schooling and health care and helped propel families into the middle class for the first time.

Singapore oilfield services company Swiber Holdings Ltd said on Friday it has applied to place itself under judicial management instead of liquidation, Reuters reported. Swiber shocked markets earlier this week by filing for liquidation, as it faced hundreds of million of dollars in debt and a decline in orders, becoming the largest local company to fall victim to the slump in oil prices.

DBS Group Holdings, Singapore's biggest lender, said it expects to recover about half of its total exposure of S$700 million ($517.4 million) to Swiber Holdings Ltd, the oilfield services provider that filed to wind up operations, Reuters reported. DBS said on Thursday that it would tap into its reserves to provide fully for the anticipated shortfall and that it expects the net allowance charge to be lower, at about S$150 million. Swiber filed for liquidation on Wednesday, buckling under millions of dollars of debt to become the latest victim of the slump in oil prices.

China’s foreign exchange regulators are struggling to stem the flow of personal wealth spilling offshore via Hong Kong’s insurance industry, the latest results from the world’s second-largest insurer suggest, the Financial Times reported. On Thursday AIA Group said that the value of new business in the territory increased by 60 per cent to $537m in the first six months of the year, noting a “substantial uplift in new business from mainland Chinese customers”.

Bondholders are suffering as a fishmeal supplier’s bankruptcy filing flags doubts among lenders that it will extract enough value from its assets in Peru to repay creditors, Bloomberg News reported. China Fishery Group Ltd. filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code on June 30, stoking a 10.5 cent drop in its 2019 notes -- set for the worst month since November.

A series of bond defaults in north-east China is exposing creditors’ frustration at the lack of a transparent process for resolving bad debt as cash-strapped local governments step back increasingly from taxpayer bailouts, the Financial Times reported. President Xi Jinping’s push for “supply-side reform” is centred on cutting excess capacity and paring back credit to so-called zombie companies, many of them state-owned. That is setting up conflicts between creditors and local governments that rely on state factories for employment and tax revenue.