The year 2020 was, by any measure, rich in awakenings and reckonings. None were as earth-shaking as those forced upon the United States, Britain and India. The pandemic found three of the world’s most prominent democracies shockingly underprepared, governed by leaders as incompetent as they were deluded and encumbered with states that had steadily rendered themselves incapable of performing their ...

The rare activist moment at China’s central bank was too late and too crude. For years, when it came to innovative business ideas, Beijing’s stance has been to let them flourish — there’s always room to regulate and rein in later. And thus gig economy superstars have blossomed. China’s version of Uber Technologies Inc, DoorDash Inc and PayPal Holdings Inc ...

From interest rates to fashion, pandemics in the past — like the Black Death in the 14th century — have left deep imprints on economic life. This time may be no different. In the aftermath of the coronavirus, governments can reimagine capitalism by giving all of us a stake in the most valuable byproduct of our day-to-day living: data. But ...