Opinion

  Iceland has provided a fascinating case study for economists. Now that it has impressively battled to restore economic and financial well-being, Finance Minister Benedikt Johannesson appears to be toying with a new experiment for the krona, the country’s currency. His thinking is being driven by the recent volatility of the exchange rate. But it also is informed by a …

  Last week, Apple launched RED, a special-edition iPhone. An undisclosed portion of sales of the phone will support The Global Fund to Fight AIDS. But the product is strangely missing from the Chinese version of Apple’s website, which promotes a red phone but has no mention of the disease. Apple didn’t respond to my question about why that’s the …

  Here’s a radical idea for reframing the health care debate on the ruins of the GOP’s half-baked plan: Let’s listen to doctors, rather than politicians. And let’s begin with a simple formula offered last week by the National Academy of Medicine: “Better health at lower cost.” Better and cheaper. It’s hard to argue with that prescription. Because the real …

  After seeing investors in Singapore duped for years by misbehaving bosses, the city’s stock exchange is taking its fight for justice to mainland China, an exemplar of egregious corporate behavior in the post-Enron world. Singapore Exchange Ltd. said last week that its lawyers in the People’s Republic filed complaints with the authorities against Wu Xinhua, executive chairman and CEO …

  With talks on Britain’s exit from the European Union finally about to begin, one procedural issue looms large: Do the negotiations on three big subjects — exit terms, transitional arrangements, and a future comprehensive agreement on a UK-EU partnership — move in parallel or in entirely separate stages? Disagreement over this seemingly minor detail could sink the whole effort. …

  Just days ahead of scheduled meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Donald Trump said that US can act alone to deal with North Korea’s nuclear program if Beijing does not cooperate to put pressure on pariah nation. Trump and Xi are meeting on April 6-7 at Republican’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. North Korean threat and South …

  Any horror aficionado knows that the only good zombie is a dead zombie. Don’t risk trying to bring one back to life. It’ll just come back to bite you. Apparently, policymakers haven’t watched enough B-movies. Worried about layoffs and soured loans, governments and banks across Asia continue to dole out cheap financing and other support to keep failing firms …

  The $1.8 billion stake that Tencent Holdings Ltd. has bought in Tesla Inc. should give some confidence to other investors, despite the carmaker’s ugly balance sheet. But it’s far more important for Tesla’s future prospects than for its current needs: Without it, the company could end up a global afterthought in the race to build the next wave of …

  The world’s biggest coal exporter has a problem. Demand for the dirtiest fuel is on the wane. The International Energy Agency — which has tended to overestimate coal production, and underestimate renewables — doesn’t expect consumption to regain its 2014 levels until 2021. Investment in new mines is ‘drying up,’ according to its latest market forecast. That’s reflected in …

  It isn’t often that economics raises the most profound questions of human existence, but recent work of economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton (husband and wife, both of Princeton University) comes close. You may recall that a few years ago, Case and Deaton reported the startling finding that the death rates of non-Hispanic whites aged 50 to 54 had …