The Obama administration has a new economic worry: competition or, allegedly, the lack of it. America’s businesses, the indictment goes, merge too often, innovate too little and bilk consumers too much. The open question is whether this argument is shrewd politics, shrewd economics — or both. No doubt, the politics are enticing. In this election season, criticizing big, impersonal firms ...

  Revelations of global auto-emissions cheating demonstrate how difficult it would be to rein in global warming. Embarrassingly, the cheating reports continued to stream in, while the world leaders were gathering in New York on Friday to sign the landmark Paris Climate Accord. It is but a paradox that such scandals come from major auto companies in the developed countries ...

  Edward Niedermeyer After a 17-year-old Texas woman became the 10th American killed by exploding Takata airbags last month, it was revealed that while the vehicle had been recalled, it had never been taken in for repair. This is tragic but not surprising: Only about a third of the nearly 29 million recalled Takata airbags have actually been replaced. This ...