Opinion

  This year’s economics Nobel Prize has gone to Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström, for their work on the theory of contracts. For good primers on the winners and their work, check out the blog of economist Kevin Bryan, several posts by the always-reliable Marginal Revolution, and the summary written by Bloomberg View’s Tyler Cowen. The research here is deep ...

  In Washington on Sunday night, the popcorn was popped, the pitchers of election-themed cocktails given a final stir. And then a hush fell over the city as the streets emptied and the professional political class gathered huddled around screens to find out whether Donald Trump would somehow rescue his improbable campaign, or whether he would pound the final nails ...

  It’s election season, so it’s time to bemoan low voter turnout. Americans do not vote in numbers comparable to the citizens of other democracies, we’re often reminded. Then the laments start: Low turnout is a sad commentary on the state of the republic. This year could be even sadder because many people don’t like either of the main parties’ ...

  Taliban insurgency continues as does Afghanistan’s dependence on foreign aid. At a recent conference in Brussels, international donors — comprising 70 countries — pledged $15.2 billion to the war-wracked nation for the next four years. NATO members are maintaining troop numbers in Afghanistan and have vowed to fund the Afghan forces with $5 billion annually until 2020. The US ...

  Growth-wise, the world seems to be in a little bit of a rut. Oh, sure, we’re OK. We just don’t seem to be going much of anywhere. Global production has recovered somewhat since the catastrophe of the financial crisis, but it didn’t bounce back entirely. Instead, we’re staggering along at a noticeably lower rate of growth, both abroad and ...

  Science fiction author William Gibson once observed that “The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.” The same can said for alpha, or the ability of money managers to deliver market-beating returns. Reports of high fees and underperformance have long dogged the alternative investment world, mainly private-equity, venture-capital and especially hedge funds. Last year, returns were negative ...

  Elaine Ou Yahoo has been getting a lot of attention lately for its failures to protect personal information. What’s perhaps more remarkable, though, is how little privacy American internet users demand. First came news that hackers stole personal data on more than 500 million Yahoo users. Now the company is dealing with reports that it helped the Justice Department ...

  Ramesh Ponnuru Paul Ryan and Donald Trump have, let’s say, a complicated relationship. Ryan has told the congressional Republicans he leads that he will no longer defend Trump — not that he ever really did — and told them to feel free to disavow him. Trump fired off an angry tweet in response, taking Ryan to task on immigration, ...

  Democracy, under siege in many parts of the world, received a serious blow in its homeland last week. In a series of jaw-dropping pronouncements, members of the Conservative British government asserted that some people were more equal than others. Home Secretary Amber Rudd proposed forcing companies to disclose how many foreign workers they employ, and threatened to “name and ...

  In 1951, U.S. central bankers re-established their autonomy after almost two decades of taking orders from the Treasury Department with the Treasury-Federal Reserve Accord. In 1955-56, the German Bundesbank, which had its autonomy guaranteed in the country’s new constitution, successfully withstood a political assault from Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. In Stockholm, the governor of the Riksbank, Per Ã…sbrink, looked on ...