Thomas Malthus was wrong for one simple reason. Humans have survived his 1798 forecast that growing populations wouldn’t be able to feed themselves because innovation and productivity gains allowed them to produce more and more with the same amount of labour and capital: Irrigation, fertilizers, higher-yielding plant species and mechanization have enabled farmers to grow 5 to 6 times ...

  With inflation in the euro zone starting to show signs of life, European Central Bank watchers are beginning to speculate about when quantitative easing might taper off. Germany’s Bundesbank, which has been uncomfortable with the bond-buying program from the get-go, is likely to be a leading advocate of scaling back purchases. But there are significant risks to moving too ...

  Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have made clear, to varying degrees, that they’re suspicious of big free-trade agreements. Trump has gone further and questioned some of America’s most durable and valuable relationships with other nations. While some of this can be dismissed as campaign rhetoric, the consequences of such talk are far-reaching. At a time of major economic ...