Opinion

  Given the parlous state of Europe’s economy, it’s hard to imagine that the investments of the region’s banks are among the safest in the world. Yet that is precisely what they would have regulators and investors believe. The banks’ safety has come into the spotlight as European officials — including German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and European Commission financial-services ...

  When smoking costs more, more people quit. That’s why higher cigarette taxes are almost always good policy, for smokers and the public health, too. There’s a catch, though — and it’s one that voters in four states should keep in mind as they consider ballot initiatives next month to raise cigarette taxes: Sin taxes work only if they’re high ...

  Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s repeated tirades have raised a wave of worry for the United States. The firebrand leader recently remarked that his country would “separate” from the US. Later, however, he clarified his comment and said he did not plan to sever the nation’s seven-decade alliance with America. For some time now, Duterte has been cozying up to ...

  In the June referendum on whether Britain should leave the European Union, 61 percent of the voters in the city of Sunderland voted to quit. As a result, 6,700 jobs at Nissan’s factory there are now in peril as the Japanese carmaker weighs whether to build the next version of its Qashqai model in the northeast of soon-to-be-independent England. ...

  India’s celebrated position as the world’s fastest-growing large economy conceals a dangerous weakness: Too few people seem to want to invest in the country. Even going by the government’s growth figures, private investment is shrinking at an increasing pace — by 1.9 percent between January and March, and by 3.1 percent between April and June. India’s Aspirations The government ...

  If Donald Trump loses the election and doesn’t concede, it won’t violate the U.S. Constitution. But it would break a tradition of concession that dates back more than a century and has achieved quasi-constitutional status. And like most enduring political customs, its value goes beyond graciousness: It helps ensure the continuity of government and offers a legitimating assist to ...

  If you were at work last Friday, you might have noticed that you couldn’t get on Twitter, Spotify, or whatever it is you do to avoid work. The sites themselves were fine, but users across the US lost access due to a large-scale attack on Dyn, a company whose servers provide infrastructure and routing services for the internet’s top ...

  Democracy requires dignity to sustain itself. This shouldn’t surprise. The ruling system that democracy replaced had been divinely chosen; the royals had God-given dignity, with all the trappings. For democrats to compete, they had to prove first that the electoral rabble could govern its passions and temper its prejudices, and next that their leaders would be chosen from the ...

  While the economic arguments for freer trade are strong, many people remain skittish about proposed trade deals involving the U.S., Asia and Europe. In particular, critics are focusing on provisions of these deals that set up tribunals to rule on disputes between governments and companies. The critics charge that these Investor-State Dispute Settlement panels would have too much power ...

  The U.S. Federal Reserve faces a tough task in figuring out how best to respond to a highly unusual economic recovery. As chair Janet Yellen noted in a recent speech, it could use some help from academia. So what key questions should researchers be trying to answer? Let’s start with what the Fed got right. Internal documents from 2009 ...