Let’s travel back in time to 1995. Most Americans still remembered the calamitous inflation of the late 1970s (prices rose 13 percent in 1979). Many federal benefits, including Social Security, were (and are) tied to inflation. But was the inflation overstated, as many economists thought? If so, the economy might be doing better than repor-ted. To answer that question, the ...

Corporate executives and their accountants have long contended that the use of adjusted earnings, which ignore costs like acquisition expenses, interest payments or just about anything they find inconvenient, gives investors a better picture of companies’ performance. Under no circumstances is it manipulation, they say. But a new study suggests it just might be. The study, which will be presented ...

Masayoshi Son is a man of grand ambitions. But his dream of raising $30 billion in an initial public offering of his Japanese mobile-phone company may be a stretch. SoftBank Group Corp is seeking a valuation of about $90 billion for its domestic wireless business and is speaking to advisers about selling a third of the unit, Giles Turner, Ruth ...