“Do we have any historical evidence that lowering tax rates, particularly among the richest strata, generates economic growth, as the Republicans always predict? Has this ever worked?” —A reader The answer is ‘no.’ As Congress tackles “tax reform,” we really don’t have conclusive historical evidence of the relationship between tax rates and economic growth. To be sure, studies abound, but ...

The latest US government report on climate change illustrates how expensive the phenomenon can be: It estimates that more frequent flooding, more violent hurricanes and more intense wildfires, among other things, have cost the country $1.1 trillion since 1980. What’s particularly striking, though, is how much the report and others like it are still missing. For two decades, researchers have ...

Britain’s housing market is vanishing before our eyes. It’s not that prices are in free-fall — so far — but the number of transactions actually completing is dwindling fast. The slowdown in London has worsened sharply since June. Houses of all prices have been hit, the data from the Land Registry show. By September, the drought had hit hardest those ...