It’s bad form to bring up unpleasant things during bonus season. That’s one of the two reasons the Asian sell-side isn’t talking much about MiFID II. The other is copious liquidity. Make no mistake. Once the great bull market ends and equity trading volumes recede, the margin compression triggered by the European Union’s revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive will ...

The year ahead looks to be dangerous for health-care security in the US, as Donald Trump’s administration continues to sabotage the law that Congress couldn’t repeal. New proposals would let many more healthy Americans drop their Obamacare coverage — raising costs for the unhealthy and risks for everyone, sick or well. It will fall to state governments to resist this ...

The economics profession’s gender problems came to the fore last year. A number of people had been speaking up about the issue for a while, but this time the concern really boiled over. The spark was a paper by then-undergraduate Alice Wu, highlighting sexist language in an anonymous internet forum used by some economists. But the profession’s gender issues run ...