Opinion

Pity Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Tesco Plc and Carrefour SA. The three Western supermarket giants have plonked down hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decade to expand their retail chains across India. Now Amazon.com Inc. is about to establish a larger bricks-and-mortar presence than all three combined at a cost of just $28 million. In the 95 minutes it …

Immigration restrictionists give a number of reasons why they want fewer people settling in the US. Most of these reasons don’t hold up under scrutiny. For example, the best available data says that immigrants don’t take native-born Americans’ jobs, or drive down their wages; indeed, it’s more likely, that skilled immigrants boost the earnings of the native-born. In the US …

At this shank end of a summer that a calmer America someday will remember with embarrassment, you must remember this: In the population of 325 million, a small sliver crouches on the wilder shores of politics, another sliver lives in the dark forest of mental disorder, and there is a substantial overlap between these slivers. At most moments, 312 million …

Leaders from Washington to Brussels are increasingly troubled by the flood of Chinese money seeking acquisitions abroad, and asking themselves how best to respond. The answer is: more carefully. The US has a federal panel, created more than four decades ago, that scrutinizes foreign investments for national-security implications, but it isn’t adequate to the task. The European Union’s current arrangements …

The Federal Reserve is about to take another small step toward getting US monetary policy back to normal. The only catch is that, as with politics and the economy, no one really knows what “normal” means anymore. So far, investors have viewed this unusual situation calmly, and the Fed is hoping this doesn’t change. But calm can become complacency—and that’s …

When members of the White House staff find themselves under criminal investigation, they should be allowed to raise money for their legal defense. They should not be allowed, as a newly revised policy from the Office of Government Ethics permits, to accept contributions from anonymous donors. The cost of public service is sometimes unreasonable, occasionally outrageous, and extracted from members …

Back in April, I wrote about one of the most troubling mysteries in economics, the falling labor share. Less of the income the economy produces is going to people who work, and more is going to people who own things. This trend is worrying because it contributes to increased inequality—poor people own much less of the land and capital in …

What’s the most important innovation behind the rise of renewable energy: Taller wind turbines? Smart power grids? Spray-on solar cells? None of the above. For all the advances made by engineers that cut the cost of solar modules and new wind generation by more than half in five years, the true heroes of the renewables revolution may be a group …

There’s a hard truth to understand for the many Catalans who intend to vote for independence on October 1: Regardless of the legality of their vote, its result can only stand if they are ready to fight for it — and if they can win in a violent conflict. As things stand before the independence referendum, Catalonia and Spain are …

When you discount the rhetorical overkill, the most surprising thing about Donald Trump’s address to the United Nations on Tuesday was how conventional it was. He supported human rights and democracy; he opposed rogue regimes; he espoused a global community of strong, sovereign nations. Pretty shocking stuff. Because he’s Trump, the zingers got the headlines: He repeated his childish, snarky …