China’s economic performance is all about what hasn’t happened. That’s huge. The world’s No. 2 economy didn’t implode under a mountain of debt, nor did trade tensions with the US bring exports undone. And there certainly hasn’t been the trade war many feared a year ago. The country’s growing reliance on services and consumption as an engine of growth — ...

Many predicted that the beginning of last year would finally bring an uptick in volatility. Instead, 2017 was one of the least volatile periods on record for the stock market. The S&P 500 was up every month. The largest peak-to-trough drawdown was slightly more than 3 percent, the lowest on record since at least the mid-1990s. And this phenomenon isn’t ...

There’s little doubt that the Higher Education Act, which affects more than $120 billion in annual federal spending, needs an update. Less clear is whether Republicans’ proposed reforms will do more harm than good. The law, last revised a decade ago, sets the conditions under which federal student financial aid is disbursed. It is the government’s primary tool for preserving ...