Declining manufacturing jobs in the US has a disproportionate impact on less-educated workers. Given that the black population is less educated than the white population, this will have a larger effect on blacks relative to whites. This column uses US Census data to show that the decline has increased inequality both within black and white communities and between black and white communities. It has also widened racial gaps in income, employment, health, marriage, and family formation.
For decades, academics and practitioners alike have argued that companies do not implement long-term strategies and that shareholders must cure the disease of short-termism to maximise shareholder value. This column examines the perils of short-termism in the context of investment policies and managers’ incentivisation. It finds that shareholder value maximisation for a typical S&P500 firm is not as straightforward as ‘no short-termism’, and depends on firm and investor characteristics.
Although the share of women in top PhD-granting departments more than doubled between 1972 and 1993, this growth has stalled in recent years. This column reviews recent literature on women’s relative position in the discipline and assesses the evidence on barriers that female economists face in publishing, promotion, and tenure. It suggests that differentialassessment of men and women is one factor in explaining women’s failure to advance in economics and that continued progress toward equality in academic economics will require a concerted effort to remove opportunities for bias in the hiring and promotion processes.
R&D tax breaks are often offered to businesses to encourage innovation. This column uses evidence from a tax reform in China to study the relationship between tax enforcement and firm innovation. Lower taxes improve both the quantity and quality of firm innovation, and have a bigger impact on those firms that are either financially constrained or those that engage more in tax evasion.
Future global employment needs are of central importance for policymakers. This column estimates that, based on growth in the working-age population, labour force participation rates, and unemployment, about three quarters of a billion jobs will need to be created in 2010–2030. It also discusses how automation will add to the number of jobs required.
Other Recent Columns:
- New evidence on the potentially harmful effects of state breakup
- Micro-responses to shocks: Pricing, promotion, and entry
- The evolving scope and content of central bank speeches
- Value chain activity in the age of changing trade alliances
- Credit booms and information depletion
- Regulation can incentivise early-stage venture capital
- Credit mechanics: A precursor to the current money supply debate
- Disclosure, sludges, and cashback in the mortgage market
- The threats to Chinese and US commercial interests aren’t that different
- Labour in the past, present, and future: A trilemma in China
- Job displacement, family dynamics, and spousal labour supply
- Driving the UK's per capita carbon dioxide emissions below 1860 levels
- News does explain yield curve changes
- The micro impact of macroprudential policies
- Automation and unemployment: Help is on the way
- Regulating lending-based crowdfunding platforms
- The rise of intangible income: A global value chain perspective
- Labour market flexibility during financial crises
- How conflict disrupts the economy
- Leverage-induced fire sales and stock market crashes
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15 - 15 March 2019 / London, Royal Society / UK Network of Environmental Economists (UKNEE)
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28 - 29 March 2019 / European Central Bank, Frankfurt / European Central Bank and the University of Ohio
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16 - 17 May 2019 / University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal / School of Engineering, University of Minho
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10 - 10 June 2019 / DePaul University, Chicago, IL (USA) / MoFiR and DePaul University
