Emerging-market stresses have been building since at least 2013. Investors may have forgotten the effect of the ‘taper tantrum’ on the so-called Fragile Five – Brazil, India, Indonesia, Turkey and South Africa – a term coined by Morgan Stanley to describe their vulnerability to capital outflows. Monetary accommodation, lower current-account deficits and growth disguised the underlying challenges, attracting more capital ...

Unlike their American peers’ unceasing love for gas guzzlers, Chinese consumers are getting over them. The country’s carmakers should recalibrate. Auto stocks have been the worst-performing sector in China as sales slide and foreign carmakers stake claims to a bigger share of the world’s largest market. Earnings last week didn’t give investors too much to bet on. Sales of Chinese ...

When they’re asked to make bets, social scientists have a surprising knack for predicting which of their colleagues’ papers are full of baloney. This is in contrast to the notoriously bad job social scientists have apparently been doing evaluating papers through traditional peer review. In a series of attempts to test the health of the field, a high proportion of ...