Opinion

  Like other big contractors, American space companies have long expected some friendly support from their government. And Uncle Sam has usually been more than happy to help. Sometimes, though, government help causes more harm than good. Since 2005, U.S. satellite manufacturers have been prohibited from hiring India’s space agency to launch their equipment. Private American launch companies, such as ...

  After years of talks and a week or two of comic opera, Canada and the European Union stifled resistance from Wallonia — the French-speaking part of Belgium — and signed their Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement. It was a good result, though with disturbing implications. CETA is a new kind of free-trade agreement. Going far beyond the elimination of ...

  The business case for wildlife conservation continues to get stronger, although the economic benefits are yet to be tapped fully. The latest study points out that if Africa stops the killing of pachyderms for their tusks, it could increase the continent’s annual tourism income by $25 million. Tourists prefer visiting national parks which have more elephants and each extra ...

  AT&T’s proposed merger with the media giant Time Warner has prompted an outcry across the political spectrum, raising worry that a corporate behemoth could control a huge chunk of the U.S. telecommunications infrastructure, along with the content that flows through it. The complaints should be familiar: Almost a century ago, in the age of radio, the phone company tried ...

  Have a look around the web — even when it isn’t Halloween — and you will see headlines that seem to be designed to frighten investors: ‘These Are the Scariest Charts…’ ‘3 Reasons Everyone Is Spooked…’ ‘Fright Night at the Stock Market’ ‘Inflation Fear Fuels Bond Rout’ ‘Fear and Uncertainty in Cattle Markets’ These clickbait headlines should be little ...

  Modern economics has little room for parasites. In the vast majority of models, there are only buyers and sellers —there’s no one who just comes up and steals your money. In the real world, of course, there are parasites galore — thieves, con artists, fraudsters, extortionists and more. In the long term, the amount of parasitism in any system ...

  Although the Trans-Pacific Partnership has been widely given up for dead, the agreement has a chance to be approved in the lame-duck Congressional session following the presidential election. But the trade deal’s many opponents are not the only obstacle; proponents have not articulated an exciting vision of what the agreement could mean. Some of the best arguments for the ...

  On the evening of Sept. 26, two interesting things happened. First, Hillary Clinton won a decisive debate victory over Donald Trump in the first presidential debate, as judged by prediction markets (and later, by polls). Second, financial markets abruptly experienced large, abnormal swings. Economists Justin Wolfers and Eric Zitzewitz have documented this extraordinary convergence in a new paper, titled ...

  In July, Republican James Comey was the toast of the Democratic Party. That was after he announced that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for allowing e-mails with classified information to be stored on a private server. Party leaders praised the FBI director’s independence. Now, many of Clinton’s supporters argue, as Republicans did over the ...

  One child in seven inhales toxic air which takes toll on brain. About 300 million children live in areas so polluted it can cause serious physical damage to them, warns a new UN study. Children are more vulnerable because their lungs, brains and immune systems are still developing. The pollutants easily find passage through their respiratory tracts. As kids ...