Recent Posts

Macron’s first step towards transforming France

President Emmanuel Macron’s new government has unveiled its plan to overhaul France’s notoriously rigid labor market. It includes useful measures that should help to boost employment, and it’s a good first step. Unfortunately, though, it doesn’t resolve some deeper-rooted problems, in particular the unduly sharp divide between workers on temporary and permanent contracts — the underlying cause of France’s so-called ...

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Making a bad situation in North Korea worse

There are, as is often noted, no good options for dealing with North Korea. All the more reason for the US not to make the few it does have even worse. That’s what President Donald Trump is doing by linking the security threat posed by North Korea with his trade agenda. Irked by China’s failure to help the US rein ...

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Japan needs to change to welcome immigrants

The US has been roiled by debates over immigration. Japan has the opposite problem—not enough debate. Immigration is happening, and no one is talking about it or preparing to deal with it. Americans tend to use Japan as an example of a country that doesn’t take in immigrants. For example, my Bloomberg View colleague Justin Fox recently wrote that “politicians ...

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