Business & Economics Archives | OUPblog

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How will America pay for long-term care?

As Democrats and Republicans continue to fight over the future of American health care, we must ask: How are we paying for it now? Should open-ended Medicare coverage be replaced with a selection of private insurers? Should Medicare subscribers be paying higher premiums? We sat down with Richard Frank, Professor of Health Economics at Harvard University and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), to discuss the current state of long term care coverage.

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Could a calorie tax or cuts in farm subsidies reduce obesity?

By Julian M. Alston and Abigail M. Okrent
Every day — whether in the supermarket, in restaurants, in the workplace, or preparing meals at home — each US adult makes hundreds of decisions about what foods to buy, what to eat, and when. From those myriad decisions has come an unwelcome, progressive rise in obesity and the social costs of obesity-related illness. In less than thirty years, the prevalence of obese Americans has more than doubled, and now more than one-third of adult Americans are obese.

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Philip Auerswald on driving innovation today

The benefits of four centuries of technological and organizational change are at last reaching a previously excluded global majority. To make the most of this epochal transition, the key is entrepreneurship. Our friends at the Kauffman Foundation sat down with Philip Auerswald, author of The Coming Prosperity: How Entrepreneurs Are Transforming the Global Economy, to discuss what’s next for the world.

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The growth of the Giving Pledge and the federal estate tax

By Edward Zelinsky
By taking the Giving Pledge, wealthy individuals publicly commit to contribute “the majority of their wealth to philanthropy.” The Pledge was started by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, Jr. Recently, twelve more wealthy families signed the Giving Pledge including Elon Musk, a founder of PayPal.

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The Prison House of Labor

By Corey Robin
When Kathy Saumier learned that a new factory was coming to town, it seemed as if there really was—as that absurdist bit of suburban wisdom from The Graduate has it—a great future in plastics. Landis Plastics, to be exact. Landis, a family-owned company based in Illinois, makes containers for yogurt and cottage cheese. The company was opening a plant in Solvay, New York, not far from Syracuse where Saumier lived. She applied for a job.

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The rise and decline of the American ‘Empire’

By Geir Lundestad
Since around 1870 the United States has had the largest economy in the world. In security matters, however, particularly in Europe, the US still played a limited role until the Second World War. In 1945, at the end of the war, the United States was clearly the strongest power the world had ever seen. It produced almost as much as the rest of the world put together. Its military lead was significant; its “soft power” even more dominant.

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When patents restrain future innovation

By Christina Bohannan and Herbert Hovenkamp
The Supreme Court’s decision in Mayo Collaborative Services (Mayo Clinic) v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., 132 S.Ct. 1289 (March 20, 2012), cited Creation Without Restraint to reject a patent on a process for determining the proper dosage of drugs used to treat autoimmune diseases.

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The Buffett Rule President Obama ignores

By Edward Zelinsky
Like many of us, President Obama is a Warren Buffett fan. Most prominently, the president advocates, as a matter of tax policy, the so-called “Buffett Rule.” This rule responds to Mr. Buffett’s observation that his effective federal income tax rate is lower than the tax rate of Mr. Buffett’s secretary. In President Obama’s formulation, the Buffett Rule calls for taxpayers making at least $1,000,000 annually to pay federal income tax at a 30% bracket.

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Mad Men and the dangerous fruit of persuasion

With the season premiere of AMC’s Mad Men coming this weekend, we thought we’d use this opportunity to introduce you to one of the most highly respected scientists in the field of Persuasion. As a matter of fact, many people consider Dr. Robert Cialdini as the “Godfather of influence”. What better way to do that then provide you with the foreword he wrote to a just-released book, Six Degrees of Social Influence. Enjoy his words below and enjoy the premiere.

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Goldman Sachs and the betrayal and repair of trust

By Robert F. Hurley
Greg Smith’s March 14, 2012 op-ed piece in the New York Times, “Why I am Leaving Goldman Sachs” is a familiar story for those who follow the betrayal and repair of trust. Smith tells a story of his frustration and disillusionment at Goldman changing from a culture that valued service to clients to one that rewarded those who made the most money for the firm even if it betrayed client interests.

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Lavatory and Liberty: The Secret History of the Bathroom Break

By Corey Robin
Inspired by all this libertarian talk, I dug out an old piece of mine from 2002, in the Boston Globe, that talks about a little known fact: many workers in the United States aren’t able to exercise their right to pee on the job—due to lack of government enforcement—and it wasn’t until 1998 (!) that they even got that right, thanks to the federal government. The piece pivots from there to a more general discussion about coercion in the workplace and its history.

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Can employment opportunities transform women’s work and family lives?

By Robert Jensen
In many developing countries, women often leave school, marry and start having children at a young age. For example, in India, less than half of girls aged 11-18 are enrolled in school. By age 18, nearly 60 percent of women are married and over a quarter have given birth. These outcomes are powerful indicators of the low social and economic progress of women, and may have consequences for poverty and income growth. It is therefore important to understand what factors can help improve these outcomes.

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Public pensions, private equity, and the mythical 8% return

By Edward Zelinsky
Public pension plans should not invest in private equity deals. These deals lack both transparency and the discipline of market forces. Private equity investments allow elected officials to assume unrealistically high rates of return for public pension plans and to make correspondingly low contributions to such plans. This is a recipe for inadequately funded pensions, an outcome good for neither public employees nor taxpayers.

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Making space for well-being?

By Mia Gray, Linda Lobao, and Ron Martin
“There is a paradox at the heart of our lives. As Western societies have got richer, their people have become no happier” (Layard, 2005). Layard has not been alone in questioning the relationship between economic growth and well-being. Theoretically, empirically, and politically, there is increasing dissatisfaction with growth as the main indicator of well-being. As such, there is renewed interest in analysing the institutions and conventions through which the economy and society are measured and understood.

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Europe: it’s not all bad

This is the very time to remind ourselves of the achievements of the EU, because if we are to make sensible choices about where we go from here, we will need to have a clear idea of both its successes and its failures.

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Mitt Romney’s IRA

By Edward Zelinsky
On a personal level, I enjoyed the news reports that Governor Romney holds assets worth tens of millions of dollars in his individual retirement account (IRA). These reports confirm a central thesis of The Origins of the Ownership Society, namely, the extent to which defined contribution accounts, such as IRAs and 401(k) accounts, have become central features of American life.