Opinion

It’s only a matter of time before European countries start taxing tech multinationals, first individually and then in a coordinated way. The question really is how digital taxes will work, and so far, the Czech Republic appears to have the best idea. It became clear in March that France’s push for a Europe-wide tax on Big Tech’s local revenues would ...

Trade wars are good, and easy to win. So President Donald Trump said last year as he embarked on his first round of tariffs on foreign imports. It seems that things have proven so good and easy that he’s readying for another bout. Trump is prepared to increase a 10 percent levy on $200 billion of imports from China to ...

Too big, too bloated, and too unwieldy. HSBC Holdings Plc’s achievement in bringing costs under control in the first quarter shouldn’t be an excuse to stand still. The bank posted a higher-than-estimated pretax profit of $6.35 billion last week as revenue growth outpaced the increase in expenses, a phenomenon known in industry jargon as “positive jaws.” Revenue climbed 9 percent ...

Bankers appear to be doing very well under President Donald Trump. Judging from government data, they’re reaping some of the biggest wage gains they’ve had in a long time. The Labor Department’s jobs report for April offered further confirmation that demand for workers is translating into better pay overall. The average hourly wage was up 3.2 percent from a year ...

Dirty air has finally become an issue in Indian election manifestos, along with perennial subjects such as temple-building and farmers’ incomes. That shouldn’t be a surprise: Even politicians can’t escape air pollution, which has reduced life expectancy in areas near the capital New Delhi by more than 12 years. To address the issue, the government earlier this year laid out ...

On the surface, our modern system of food production looks efficient: It produces plenty of food and seems highly innovative. But it also encourages people to eat unhealthy sugars and fats, while fully one-third of all food produced is lost or goes to waste. Industrial agriculture is defiling lakes and rivers with chemical runoff and depleting irreplaceable fertile topsoils. The ...

Uber Technologies Inc.’s initial public offering will be a bittersweet moment for private equity giant Carlyle Group and its London minicab firm Addison Lee Holdings Ltd. Uber will almost certainly join its fellow ride-hailing company Lyft Inc. in securing a nosebleed market value, despite making heavy losses. The investor buzz could benefit Carlyle as it looks to exit from its ...

India needs a minister for investment. Whoever wins the May 23 election count, the next government must find somebody who will boldly open the doors to American and Japanese capital. Another statist intervention in a country that labors under an excess of bureaucracy might not look like much of a solution to anything. But for India to break free from ...

If you read only one history of the global financial crisis and the turbulent decade that resulted, I recommend “Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World,” by Columbia University historian Adam Tooze. Few authors are as capable of weaving together economics, policy and geopolitics into a coherent whole. Not only does Tooze cover every critical aspect of ...

South Korea doesn’t need another rescue from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but it is stuck and does need a new model. News hasn’t been great lately for the nation, sandwiched between slower growth in China and Japan. Gross domestic product (GDP) shrank last quarter in what was probably a shock, not just to economists who anticipated a small increase, ...