Opinion

  India’s bad-loan crisis, afflicting almost 20 of banks’ assets, has moved tantalizingly close to a resolution. Giving the central bank the power to force lenders to shed soured debt is a welcome policy move. But a nine-month target to clear 60 large corporate delinquencies may be wishful thinking. The reason is an untested bankruptcy court. That’s a risk investors …

  The stick doesn’t seem to be working, so now China’s waving carrots to bring the country’s burgeoning media landscape into line. The State Council and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China plan to boost the development of online outlets by creating new media institutions and encouraging eligible websites to go public, the official Xinhua news agency …

  Emmanuel Macron, who started his own party En Marche! — or On the Move! a year ago, defeated National Front’s Marine Le Pen in France’s presidential election. The election threw up many surprises. Although Macron, a 39-year-old centrist, was projected as a winner by opinion polls, what is remarkable is that he became France’s youngest elected president just a …

  Having bestowed the presidency on a candidate who described their country as a “hellhole” besieged by multitudes trying to get into it, Americans need an antidote for social hypochondria. Fortunately, one has arrived from Don Boudreaux, an economist at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center and proprietor of the indispensable blog Cafe Hayek. He has good news: You are as …

  The benefits of OPEC’s agreement to cut output have proved elusive. With less than three weeks to go before the group’s next meeting, something is very, very wrong as far as oil producers are concerned. And they have no easy solution to put it right. The oil price is not far off where it was in November, before OPEC …

  Beji Sasaki, a maverick businessman who first challenged Tokyo’s status quo four decades ago, says his bidding war with the $13 billion computer giant Fujitsu Ltd. is just the start of his plan to use takeovers to change Japan Inc. Sasaki, a 61-year-old entrepreneur, fashion designer and supermarathon runner, says he’s setting up a fund backed by Taiwanese money …

  We are defining prosperity down — or, more accurately, prosperity is defining itself down. We are eight years into the recovery from the Great Recession, the unemployment rate has dropped to 4.4 percent, the stock market is pushing record highs, and consumer confidence seems robust. And yet, the economy doesn’t feel as good as it looks. Anxieties lurk. There …

  When Tesco Plc was in crisis, many investors wanted Archie Norman to become its chairman. Instead, he’s ended up at another storied but struggling British household name: Marks and Spencer Plc. M&S isn’t in as much of a pickle as Tesco was, but it is striving to revive its clothing business while the consumer environment is about to get …

  The dereliction of duty is breathtaking. In pushing the American Health Care Act through the House of Representatives, Speaker Paul Ryan and his Republican conference have voted to remake almost one-fifth of the US economy. They did so without public hearings, without input from outside experts, without analysis by the Congressional Budget Office and without, finally, much compunction or …

  British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party scored a landslide victory in local government elections. It’s a prelude to a massive victory for May in the UK’s June 8 poll. The Tories won 1,882 of the 4,851 council seats contested in England, Scotland and Wales. It is a net gain of 556, which brought under control 11 counties and …