Opinion

People have been discussing how Donald Trump interacts with other humans, guessing at the extent to which he is capable of anticipating or understanding how they think. Some believe he has no such “theory of mind.” I disagree: He has one, but it’s path-independent. Remember when he thought people would like the fact that he’d fired FBI Director James Comey? ...

China’s financial markets are fascinating to watch these days. Efforts by officials to decrease the nation’s enormous debt pile without destabilizing domestic markets are having profound consequences, most visibly in the bond market, where the yields on short-term debt have risen above those on longer maturities for the first time. The implications are more than just academic. In fact, they ...

In one of the most important rulings in its history, the European Court of Justice gave the European Commission broad powers to negotiate trade deals without the approval of each member state. This is likely to make Brexit negotiations much easier than expected, but the final deal — if there is one — worse for the U.K. Formally, the ruling ...

When we think about productivity, we often have a bias towards physical goods — things we can touch and feel, like iPhones or suits. But over the past century, as the economic historian Stephen Broadberry has shown, services, not manufacturing, have been key to explaining which countries are moving up or down the international productivity league table. And yet advanced ...

Center-left parties throughout the Western world have been tempted to pick dogmatic, hard-left leaders. In Europe, one after another party has succumbed to the temptation, though it has hurt their electoral chances. It seems illogical, but it may eventually pay off. The Spanish Socialists, the party that has been in government most since the country democratized, has just returned Pedro ...

I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news: The internet is not a fair place. And the current fight over “net neutrality” is not going to change that. For those of us whose eyes glaze over at the mention of net neutrality, here’s the basic principle: Companies such as Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc. that sell internet connections shouldn’t ...

The newest hurdle for the American Health Care Act, which has yet to win over doctors, nurses, hospitals, health insurers, older people, Democrats and some Republican senators, is something called the “Jimmy Kimmel test.” The bill fails that, too. The shorthand arises from comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s tearful monologue earlier this month about his newborn son’s heart defect. Kimmel told his ...

Troops mutiny in Ivory Coast. Ebola resurfaces in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Zambia jails its most prominent opposition leader. Corruption deepens in South Africa. These recent headlines are a reminder that terrorism and violent extremism aren’t the only challenges facing sub-Saharan Africa. Yet the Trump administration shows little interest in the continent beyond this narrow concern. That’s a mistake. ...

As anyone who’s attended an Indian wedding knows, we far too often leave vital organizational tasks till the last minute, then tackle them all in an enormous, frenetic rush. The countdown to the 1 July deadline for the introduction of India’s new goods and services tax, or GST, feels a lot like that. This is perhaps India’s most comprehensive and ...

It took S&P Global Ratings five extra years of hand-wringing to acknowledge that Indonesian sovereign debt was investment grade. Now that it has, expect the ripples to be felt in places other than the bond market. Fitch Ratings gave the Southeast Asian nation the all-important upgrade in December 2011. That was 14 years after the Asian crisis led 59 percent ...