Opinion

  What do you do when you’ve been given a death sentence? Do you live your remaining time to the fullest, or do you spend that time taking long-shot chances at a cure? No, this isn’t a column about cancer. It’s a column about businesses whose core industries are doomed. The perennial staple of such discussions is the venerable buggy-whip ...

  Is Brexit unconstitutional? That’s the key issue in a suit argued this week before the High Court in London. What makes the question especially piquant is that Britain doesn’t have a single written constitution, but rather a complex tradition of constitutional law made up of principles, precedents and practices accrued over generations. Under those principles, the answer to whether ...

  A specter is haunting academia, the specter of specters — ghosts, goblins and “cultural appropriation” through insensitive Halloween costumes. Institutions of higher education are engaged in the low comedy of avoiding the agonies of Yale. Last October, the university was rocked to its 315-year-old foundations by the wife of a residential college master (a title subsequently expunged from Yale’s ...

  At the first presidential debate, Donald Trump said he would “absolutely” accept the outcome of the election as the will of the people. But that was before poor debate reviews rolled in and boasts of sexual assault surfaced, sending his campaign into a tailspin. Trump has since backtracked, claiming that the election might be stolen from him. And if ...

Urbanization has contributed hugely to economic and social development. Cities today represent 80% of global GDP. Urban areas have created livelihood avenues and made societies stronger. However, rapid urbanization has brought in its wake a host of formidable challenges. Some climate change and environmental problems are very urban-specific. Around 70% of the global population will be urban in the next ...

  Thomas Malthus was wrong for one simple reason. Humans have survived his 1798 forecast that growing populations wouldn’t be able to feed themselves because innovation and productivity gains allowed them to produce more and more with the same amount of labour and capital: Irrigation, fertilizers, higher-yielding plant species and mechanization have enabled farmers to grow 5 to 6 times ...

  With inflation in the euro zone starting to show signs of life, European Central Bank watchers are beginning to speculate about when quantitative easing might taper off. Germany’s Bundesbank, which has been uncomfortable with the bond-buying program from the get-go, is likely to be a leading advocate of scaling back purchases. But there are significant risks to moving too ...

  Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have made clear, to varying degrees, that they’re suspicious of big free-trade agreements. Trump has gone further and questioned some of America’s most durable and valuable relationships with other nations. While some of this can be dismissed as campaign rhetoric, the consequences of such talk are far-reaching. At a time of major economic ...

  Alibaba’s Jack Ma has big dreams. Having transformed Chinese retail, he’s now determined to reinvigorate globalization. The way to do so, according to his annual shareholder letter released last week, is for other countries to use or replicate Alibaba’s “commerce infrastructure,” which includes everything from sales portals to payment systems. Ma hopes to see similar systems applied on a ...

  One of the few bright spots for international investors following the U.K.’s June vote to quit the European Union was the swift establishment of political stability. David Cameron’s decision to fall on his sword threatened a divisive battle for control of the ruling Conservative government; instead, Theresa May emerged unchallenged and triumphant as her rivals dropped away. That stability, ...