In the 19th and 20th centuries, a few countries got fabulously rich. These included most of Europe, parts of East Asia, some small oil producing states and parts of the former British Empire. In recent decades, more of the world — large parts of China, portions of India, Southeast Asia and part of Latin America — have joined the rich ...

China’s deep-pocketed internet giants are fighting a turf war in Indonesia, where e-commerce sales could surpass India’s as soon as 2020. The only problem is that there’s almost no path to profitability. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Tencent Holdings Ltd. and JD.com Inc. already back four of the top five online-shopping startups in Southeast Asia’s most populous country. In March, Alibaba ...

Are wages determined by market forces, or do businesses get to decide what pay they offer to workers? This question gets at the heart of a lot of the debate about the economy. Why has wage growth been so sluggish for so many years? If you’re on the market-forces side of the wage question, you might answer that productivity growth ...