Thumbing through the annual report of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) is always an education. This year’s 430-page edition is no exception. Crammed with tables and charts, it brims with useful facts and insights. —On page 62, we learn that the growth of state and local government spending on services (schools, police, parks) has been the slowest ...

G20 finance ministers’ disagreement in Shanghai over the best way to stem the economic slowdown had a cascading effect across the universe as hopes pinned on the summit dashed, sending a negative message to the equity markets. Despite being aware about the potential risks, the group’s communiqué did not include the call for coordinated action for which many had hoped. ...

A jump in the core U.S. inflation rate has persuaded many people that deflation is no longer a threat. But even those who never subscribed to the idea that consumer prices might decline for a sustained period should be wary of misreading the data and dismissing the risk of deflation. Core U.S. consumer prices, excluding food and energy, rose 0.3 ...