“Give me 50 days, friends,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked citizens after he canceled 86 percent of the country’s currency notes. After December 30, if Indians saw his decision as flawed, he promised to “suffer any punishment.” But, he said confidently, if they could bear 50 days of disruption, they would have the “India of their dreams.” It …

  China’s promise to shut down its commercial ivory trade by the end of the year is good news for Africa’s elephants. For the Chinese government, though, it creates a strange problem: what to do with its 40-ton stockpile of ivory, worth about $150 million. Although that may not sound like a lot, how China approaches that hoard may be …

  This time of year is peak forecasting season — holiday retail sales, lists of stocks you should buy this year and, of course, market forecasts all keep economists, strategists and analysts busy. I always make time to mock some of the sillier approaches to prediction-making. Indeed, I have been doing this for so long that some pushback has developed …