No sooner had the Taliban taken Kabul than questions began to be asked about how they would manage Afghanistan’s economy. Do the insurgents-turned-rulers have the skills to run, say, a modern finance ministry and central bank? Will foreign donors trust them with aid? Can they do business with investors interested in the country’s mineral wealth? Throughout their two decades in ...

It has been a rough few weeks for Amazon.com Inc shareholders. Since the company’s disappointing July earnings report, its share price has fallen by a double-digit percentage and its market value has dropped by a couple hundred billion dollars. Investors are worried about slowing e-commerce sales growth and profitability pressures at its key Amazon Web Services cloud-computing unit. And the ...

Danny, the political theorist, aspiring lawyer and purveyor of rare herbs in the British cult film Withnail and I, understood the problem of Chinese real estate. “If you’re hanging on to a rising balloon, you’re presented with a difficult decision,” he observes. “Let go before it’s too late or hang on and keep getting higher, posing the question: How long ...