The cleverest corporate strategies can come unstuck when they meet reality. That may include the ambitious plan hatched by Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceuticals Co. to buy the British drugmaker Shire Plc. This deal has got off to a bad start, and bad starts are often inauspicious in M&A. Takeda’s stock fell 16 percent between its interest in Shire emerging and the ...

Theresa May survived a key Brexit showdown with rebels in her own Conservative Party in parliament. The apparent compromise frees the prime minister to negotiate a divorce agreement with the European Union. But her threat of walking away without a deal is no longer credible. If she fails in the negotiations, there’s now every chance parliament will force her back ...

Why would economists rather talk about efficiency than inequality? Having lived among them for a while, I don’t think the reason is what many people think. The common narrative on the political left is that economists are shilling for the rich, focusing on growth in order to draw attention away from how a few are gaining enormous wealth. But a ...