Four days ago, Britain completed the process of quitting the European Union, a major act of foreign policy that most of the world finds bewildering, and considers ill-advised. It brought to mind comments at an Anglo-German conference some 15 years ago made by the then-chairman of Mercedes-Benz: “I want to tell our British friends how much we hope they will ...

Texas is making another bid to become America’s technology hub. It will be an uphill battle, to put it mildly. But one seemingly small policy tweak could give the state a big boost in its quest to lure the tech industry: banning the enforcement of noncompete agreements. In the 1970s, Austin established itself as a technology cluster but never attained ...

As much as pouring cement and building towers, Brazilian construction dynasty Odebrecht was famed for its political panache. “I get down in the mud with the pigs but come out the other side clean in my white suit,” Norberto Odebrecht, founder of the legacy contractor, liked to boast back in the 1970s and 1980s. The catchphrase was shorthand for what ...