American farmers have been complaining of labor shortages for several years now. Given a multi-year decline in illegal immigration, and a similarly sustained pickup in the US job market, the complaints are unlikely to stop without an overhaul of immigration rules for farm workers. Efforts to create a more straightforward agricultural-workers visa that would enable foreign workers to stay longer ...

The economic policy proposals of Italy’s populist coalition have spooked the markets, which have driven up government debt yields. And yet the two coalition partners, League and the Five Star Movement, may be on to something with a proposal for a two-tier flat tax. Today, Italy has five income tax brackets with rates ranging from 23 percent to 43 percent. ...

Prepare for the great, but slow, unwinding of a Chinese leviathan. Anbang Insurance Group Co., the bailed-out owner of assets from New York’s Waldorf Astoria hotel to Dutch insurer Vivat NV, is sending out mixed messages. The conglomerate hired bankers at UBS Group AG and China International Capital Corp. to advise on potential divestments, Bloomberg News reported; yet the government ...