The Chancellor is right to keep his powder dry” was George Osborne’s comment on the mini-budget presented this week by Philip Hammond, his successor at the head of the U.K. Treasury. That’s probably correct given the cloud of uncertainty the Brexit vote is casting over the economy. If he waits too long, however, Hammond risks missing an opportunity to ...

  Why has so much of the world succumbed to populist demagoguery and xenophobic nationalism? To a non-trivial extent, economists may be responsible. This idea finds some support in a new book, The Econocracy, written by three U.K. economics students — Joe Earle, Cahal Moran and Zach Ward-Perkins. They argue that popular dissatisfaction with government has a lot to do ...

Barry Ritholtz I keep promising to stop writing about lessons from the election that are applicable to markets, and then I keep finding more examples. So rather than make any promises I cannot keep, let’s just jump right into this. Since Donald Trump’s surprise victory — though it wasn’t a surprise to those of you with the power of hindsight ...