William Hogarth’s 1747 classic “The Industrious Apprentice and the Idle Apprentice” may be about to demonstrate its continued pedagogical strength in the international economy, where Japan and the United States have enjoyed contrasting fates for a decade.

In this two part analysis, I ask a question that may have serious implications for the U.S. economy: are there now some service industries that are parasitic on the U.S. economy, so that their output should be subtracted from rather than added to gross domestic product figures? In the first part, published Monday, I examined […]

The potential bankruptcy of Arthur Andersen LLP, largely through litigation risks, brings into focus an interesting question: Are there some service industries that, far from contributing to the nation’s economy, in fact are parasites, so that their output should be subtracted from rather than added to gross domestic product figures?

The economic news in the last several weeks has been almost uniformly positive. The commentary from our competitors has been even more so, tending to dismiss as laughable the possibility that the recovery may be only temporary, that a “double dip” recession may occur. Consequently one is driven to ask: Are we in a bear […]

Corporate governance — the establishment of appropriate norms for the way corporations are governed, including independent directors and audit committees — is fashionable right now, both in emerging markets, where it is a major push of aid-sponsored economic “reform” and in the United States, where we are told that a better audit committee could have […]