For quite a while now, it’s been rare to hear the name “India” without the giddy qualifier, “the world’s fastest-growing large economy.” Those seeking to promote India as a destination for investment — including, perhaps especially, its government — have driven home the message that India is the “bright spot” in the global economy. The latest data on economic growth ...

Critics of globalization have named their enemies: those citizens of the world who, in British Prime Minister Theresa May’s scornful phrase, are really “citizens of nowhere.” Populist leaders are championing policies to combat such cosmopolitanism — restricting migration, rethinking regional trade deals, pressuring companies to create jobs at home. Yet while it contains some truths, the populists’ diagnosis is incomplete. ...

In the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin asks his dad how engineers determine the weight limit on bridges. The dad answers that they do this by driving heavier and heavier trucks over the bridge until it breaks, then rebuild the bridge after discovering what it took to break it. This isn’t how engineers actually figure out the safety specifications ...