Opinion

  In February 2015, economists at HSBC Holdings in London coined the terms “hard” and “soft” Brexit. The latter would maintain “much of the status quo” if the UK voted to quit the European Union; the former entailed “huge risk and would be operationally complicated.” Even just after the Brexit vote, you could be forgiven for seeing the hard option …

  How do you celebrate the fifth anniversary of a colossal mistake? For India’s tax department, the answer has to be: Make a new one that’s a thousand times worse, then sit back and enjoy the fun. There can be no other explanation for the “clarifications” the authorities issued before Christmas, instructing fund managers to withhold and pay taxes when …

  Even by his standards, President-elect Donald Trump’s statements on trade have been stunning in their recklessness. His proposals essentially amount to the repudiation of a system that has fostered global stability and lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty over the last several decades — and if he actually intends to execute his radical agenda, there’s little …

  This is one of the mysteries that has already put the ability of technology to test and will continue to frustrate the world in future. The search of missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 has been abandoned after almost three years. The plane vanished during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014. Crews completed their deep-sea …

  Wells Fargo is planning to launch new compensation packages for its employees that aim to reward customer satisfaction. And 25,000 entry-level workers, including tellers and customer-service reps, received raises that bring minimum pay from $12 to $13.50 per hour. These are positive steps towards digging out from a badly mismanaged scandal. In September, the bank was fined $185 million …

  Don’t leap to conclusions about JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s decision to upgrade its assessment of Indonesia’s stock market. The New York-based bank has elevated internal compliance to nuisance levels in Asia since a scandal over its hiring practices in China broke three years ago, people who work at JPMorgan tell me. In such an environment, the Indonesia rating change …

  Last week, China announced that it had mastered the art of making ballpoint pens. Don’t laugh: It was a years-long effort that cost millions of dollars and required the leadership of a state-run corporate colossus. It was front-page news, widely discussed on talk shows and celebrated on social media. And it was no one-off stunt. China hopes such government-mandated …

  Economists are going to have to approach things a bit differently if they want to stay relevant in the Trump age. Political economy research is going to become more important. Some humility wouldn’t hurt. And they should look someplace other than the federal government to test their ideas. This is what I took away from this past weekend’s American …

  The sun’s energy is free, but the capital required to harness it must earn a fair return. Try telling that to the gung-ho bidders for India’s utility-scale solar power projects. Auction prices will fall below 4 rupees (6 U.S. cents) per kilowatt-hour this year, Bloomberg News reports. The record low 2016 bid was 4.34 rupees. A 60 percent drop …

  There is no federal law against mentally unstable adults possessing a firearm in the US Psychotic episodes, recurring delusions, illnesses such as paranoid schizophrenia or dementia: None of these disqualify Americans from buying or owning guns. Only someone who has been officially declared “mentally defective,” or who has been involuntarily committed to a mental institution, is prohibited. That helps …