Opinion

Central bank sleuths are on the case. What explains the ‘mystery,’ to use Janet Yellen’s word, behind low inflation and strong employment? It’s a question that requires global detective work, a point amplified by the Federal Reserve minutes this week when someone (who may have been Yellen) remarked on the global nature of the challenge. Inflation and wages remain stubbornly ...

India’s slowdown—recently confirmed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which sharply reduced its estimate of growth during the current financial year—has set off a couple of energetic and oddly contradictory responses from the government in New Delhi. On the one hand, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has aggressively defended his record, comparing it positively to the stagnation presided over by the ...

With eyes wide open, Mike Pence eagerly auditioned for the role as Donald Trump’s poodle. Now comfortably leashed, he deserves the degradations that he seems too sycophantic to recognize as such. He did Trump’s adolescent bidding with last Sunday’s pre-planned virtue pageant of scripted indignation — his flight from the predictable sight of players kneeling during the national anthem at ...

India is an emerging market standout. The country was one of only a handful of large economies marked down in forecasts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) this week. India’s GDP is expected to rise 6.7% this year, compared with a previous projection of 7.2%. Next year’s estimate was also lowered. Midway through their term, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ...

The state of the union is strong in China. The nation not only holds $1.1 trillion of US debt, it’s also able to issue bonds, in dollars, at the same price as Treasuries. The Ministry of Finance announcement this week that it plans to sell $2 billion of dollar bonds marks China’s first offering in that currency since 2004. The ...

The Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan was never the best way to lower US greenhouse-gas emissions. A national tax on carbon dioxide emissions would have been far simpler and more effective. By making sure that all fuels are priced to account for their effects on climate, it would have let the market find the most efficient ways to cut emissions. ...

By accepting an upper limit to the number of immigrants Germany will accept for humanitarian reasons, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made one of her trademark compromises: no one is happy, but her solution will work well enough for now. Forming a governing coalition in the next few months will require a few more of these. Merkel and Bavarian prime minister ...

Oil prices have been subject to big swings this year. Since June, though, fundamental demand factors have been supportive, and with global economic growth firming, the outlook for oil is bright. The significant — and surprising — midyear crude oil price selloff was triggered at the beginning of June by China’s Caixin PMI for May, which showed a contraction in ...

Judging from General Motors Co.’s test cars and Elon Musk’s predictions, the world is headed toward a future that’s both driverless and all-electric. In reality, autonomy and battery power could end up being at odds. That’s because self-driving technology is a huge power drain. Some of today’s prototypes for fully autonomous systems consume two to four kilowatts of electricity—the equivalent ...

It’s time to build the wall—and, in doing so, prevent an estimated 690,000 DACA ‘dreamers’ from being deported from the United States. It’s a fair deal that could be scuttled only by intense and self-serving partisanship from the White House and the Republican and Democratic congressional leadership. As almost everyone knows by now, DACA stands for ‘Deferred Action for Childhood ...