Asia expert Ezra Vogel published his influential book “Japan as Number One” 40 years ago. At the time, he argued that the US needed to adopt aspects of Japan’s supposedly superior economic system if it wanted to compete with the East Asian powerhouse. Policymakers in Washington were wise to ignore him. While Japan sank into a financial crisis and three ...

Almost 10 years after the Great Recession ended, the growing threat of a new economic slowdown raises a troubling question: When the next recession strikes, what can the world’s central banks do? With interest rates low and their balance sheets still loaded with assets bought to fight the 2008 crisis, do they have the tools to respond? The US economy ...

Grief is not too strong a word for the emotion that hundreds of millions of people around the world felt as they saw the Cathedral of Notre Dame in flames. It wasn’t just that one of Europe’s most beloved buildings was burning, terrible as that was to watch; it was knowing how much this astonishing creation has meant to Parisians, ...