Editor’s note: Donald Trump stunned the polls and the pundits to win the 2016 U.S. presidential election. So what will his victory mean for the economy, businesses and financial markets? We asked four of our regular economic writers to weigh in.

Healing the divide

Christos Makridis, Stanford University

In the past few months, economic policy...

This year’s election season was historic in more ways than one. An unprecedented nine states considered liberalizing cannabis laws, and here’s how it broke down: California, Massachusetts and Nevada saw their ballot measures pass. If Maine’s ballot measure is also approved, that would bring the total number of states with legal...

The core theme of Donald Trump’s campaign – that the establishment was broken – drove waves of his supporters to the polls.

Surprisingly, this theme didn’t make it into his victory speech. Nor did any reference to the seismic shift in American politics that took place, save for brief mentions that the night was...

The presidential campaign of 2016 thankfully – and we can only hope officially – ended this evening. As of when this article was posted, there are no reports of widespread cyberattacks or other digital interference against state voting...

School boards have often been portrayed as old-fashioned and dysfunctional, so much so that some school reform leaders have advocated for eliminating school boards altogether.

It is no surprise then that school board...

While the world was focused on Clinton versus Trump, the balance of power in the Senate was decided. While not all the races are decided at this hour, it is clear that the Republicans will maintain a majority of the U.S. Senate.

The Democrats needed to swing five seats in their favor in order to take the majority of seats (or pick up four seats,...

A populist wave that began with Brexit in June reached the United States in stunning fashion on Tuesday night. In one of the biggest upsets in American political history, Donald Trump won a truly historic victory in the U.S. presidential election.

Trump’s remarkably decisive win stunned most political pundits, myself included. Throughout...

Global financial markets plunged as Donald Trump appeared headed toward victory in the U.S. presidential election.

Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 and FTSE 100 tumbled about 5 percent, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 2.9 percent and the Mexican peso – a key indicator of investor sentiment during this race – plummeted 12...

Key to democracy is public engagement – when people discuss the issues of the day with each other openly, honestly and without outside influence. But what happens when large numbers of participants in that conversation are biased robots created by unseen groups with unknown...

As an observational astronomer who teaches students about the behavior of the moon, I’m thankful for anything that inspires people to go out and look at the sky. For me it’s second nature to pay attention to the moon; when my son was born, I would take him out at night to observe with...