There is good news when it comes to China’s scary and still-growing pile of debt: At least the government recognizes the problem. Its attempts to mitigate those risks, however, seem doomed to fall short. The government’s recent decision to create a market for credit default swaps is a case in point. The idea, as elsewhere, is to give banks ...

  Will Italy follow the U.K.’s example and leave the European Union? Far-fetched as it may seem, capital flows suggest that some people aren’t waiting to find out. To keep the euro area’s accounts in balance, Europe’s central banks track flows of money among the members of the currency union. If, for example, a depositor moves 100 euros from Italy ...

  If, as polls are indicating, Hillary Clinton is the next U.S. president — the election forecaster Nate Silver says there’s an 86 percent chance — her initial years in office will depend less on the size and shape of her victory than on which party controls the Senate. Although the battle for control of the chamber, where Republicans currently ...