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Jul 11, 2016

Slaughter & Rees Report: Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Attentive leaders in government and business continue to fret over America’s sluggish productivity growth.

Jun 30, 2016

Slaughter & Rees Report: The Fundamental Lesson of Brexit Lies in Skellig Michael

Welcome to the end of the world’s first post-Brexit week. Do note that apocalyptic scenarios notwithstanding, the sun is still rising and setting.

May 31, 2016

Slaughter & Rees Report: The Fight Against Fat

Barack Obama’s presidency will forever be linked to his contentious, but ultimately successful, effort to enact comprehensive health care reform.

May 23, 2016

Slaughter & Rees Report: The Approaching Hurricane

Hurricane Katrina remains the costliest natural disaster in United States history. So much of what the world knows of this 2005 storm centers on either its aggregate totals—a haunting death toll of at least 1,245 and perhaps as high as 1,900—or its damage to New Orleans, Louisiana—where flooding of about 80 percent of the entire surface area led to tragically iconic pictures such as thousands stranded (and some dying) at the tattered Superdome.

May 16, 2016

Slaughter & Rees Report: Meet George Jetson

A few years ago, the acclaimed investor and author Peter Thiel pithily summed up the paucity of big-bang innovations: “We were promised flying cars and we got 140 characters.”

Apr 25, 2016

Slaughter & Rees Report: What Prince Taught Us About the Global Economy

Towards the end of one of his early hits “1999,” Prince hauntingly foretold that, “life is just a party and parties weren’t meant 2 last.”

Apr 18, 2016

Slaughter & Rees Report: Stuck in Second Gear

“Growth has been too slow for too long.” That was the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, Maurice Obstfeld, writing last week about global economic conditions.

Apr 04, 2016

Slaughter & Rees Report: The World’s Most Precious Resource

Stroll down the Quai d’Orsay in Paris and you will find the French Foreign Ministry, art galleries, and something completely different: the Musée des égouts de Paris. Translated to English, that’s the Museum of Sewers.

Mar 21, 2016

Slaughter & Rees Report: Who Will Make the Case for Trade?

Divided though the four leading presidential candidates are on so many topics, united they stand on one: the assertion that trade harms America.

Mar 14, 2016

Slaughter & Rees Report: Voters in Distress

As the American presidential campaign continues its meandering twists and turns, last week brought a major surprise when Bernie Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton in the Michigan primary election.

Feb 29, 2016

Slaughter & Rees Report: Venezuela Reels, Argentina Recovers, and Leaders Matter

One thing that unites all of the world’s companies and consumers is the need to comply with the rules and regulations of the jurisdiction in which they operate or live.

Feb 08, 2016

Slaughter & Rees Report: How to Kill Zika

Market failure has long been a staple of Economics 101. Today a textbook example can tragically be found amid the world’s growing fears related to the Zika virus.

Feb 01, 2016

Slaughter & Rees Report: Let the Games Begin—and Let the True Math Be Revealed

Here in the United States, the long wait ends starting today. In the great state of Iowa, in about 12 hours from this missive hitting your inbox voters will congregate in school gyms and other public spaces to caucus for their preferred presidential candidate.

Jan 25, 2016

Slaughter & Rees Report: Lessons on Leadership

It is one of the most pressing issues facing companies, government agencies, and educational institutions: what are the most effective styles of leadership, and how can they be developed?

Jan 18, 2016

Slaughter & Rees Report: How Your iPhone Can Help Save the WTO—and the Climate

Fresh off the death of the Doha Development Round, the World Trade Organization greets 2016 seeking renewed purpose. Here is one: assuage the drift left after last month’s global climate change conference in Paris (known as “COP21”) by forging a new free-trade deal—the Clean Technology Agreement.

Jan 11, 2016

Slaughter & Rees Report: The Chinese Yuan, Global Markets, and Shooting Dirty Pool

Optimists that we are, your correspondents were looking for an exciting start to 2016. “Exciting” is one word that might describe the new year in global markets.

Dec 07, 2015

Slaughter & Rees Report: Survival of the Nimblest

Technology continues to remake large swatches of the global economy. Want Exhibit A that the world of finance is being transformed? How about banks deciding whether to lend to you based on how quickly you run down your smartphone battery?

Nov 30, 2015

Slaughter & Rees Report: Leaders Helping Leaders?

Once a year, The Wall Street Journal convenes in Washington, D.C. its CEO Forum, at which over 100 CEOs of global companies gather to engage with each other, with policy leaders, and with WSJ editors and other guests on the business and policy issues of the day. At the most recent gathering, one of us attended to moderate one of the six task-force discussions; most specifically, on the topic of how public policy might better foster the innovativeness and competitiveness of companies in the United States.

Nov 23, 2015

Slaughter & Rees Report: Penny-Wise, Pound-Foolish

The health of a body politic can often be gauged by its ability to act in the long-term, national interest. On that metric, all does not seem well in the United States.

Nov 16, 2015

Slaughter & Rees Report: The Betamax Bust and the Future of Global Business

Sony's Betamax gave television viewers the ability to record programs even while they weren’t watching them.

Nov 02, 2015

Slaughter & Rees Report: How Refugees Can Revive Europe’s Economies

Refugees will deliver a long-term economic stimulus to the region.

Oct 26, 2015

Slaughter & Rees Report: The Financial-Inclusion Revolution

The banking industry is in the doldrums.

Oct 12, 2015

Slaughter & Rees Report: Three Reasons to Support the TPP

A plurality of Americans support the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Oct 05, 2015

Slaughter & Rees Report: Brazil’s Dubious Destiny

Once called "the land of the future," Brazil struggles to live up to its potential.

Sep 28, 2015

Slaughter & Rees Report: Who Has an Answer to the Puzzle of $53,657?

What do U.S. Presidential aspirants Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have in common?

Sep 21, 2015

Slaughter & Rees Report: An Offer in the Oval Office

Here's what we hope President Obama says to China’s President Xi.

Sep 14, 2015

Slaughter & Rees Report: Albert Einstein and the Global Economy

“Everything should be made as simple as possible—but not simpler,” counseled Albert Einstein. As with physics, so too with public policies aimed at addressing the world’s tensions of rising income inequality.

Jul 30, 2013

Slaughter & Rees Report: A Day for the History Books

U.S. economic policy must encourage investment and job creation.

Jul 08, 2013

Slaughter & Rees Report: The Remarks Chairman Bernanke Dreams of Delivering

Jun 24, 2013

Slaughter & Rees Report: Pork Goes Global

The Slaughter & Rees Report notes growing foreign investment in U.S. firms.

Mar 26, 2013

Slaughter & Rees Report: Three Labor-Market Specters

Can monetary and fiscal stimulus create high-productivity, high-paying jobs?