Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
As the “official doctrine of neoclassical economics, enshrined in all respectable textbooks,” the esteemed game theorist Ken Binmore says, revealed preference theory “succeeds in accommodating the infinite variety of the human race within a single theory simply by denying itself the luxury of speculating about what is going on inside someone’s head. Instead, it pays attention only to what people do.”
In the age of gig economy, remote work, and juggling multiple jobs, unpaid labour is no longer confined only to the domestic sphere or volunteerism. It is now an insidious undercurrent in paid employment, eroding worker rights and deepening inequality.
Human beings mean. We just do. Human beings contemplate the importance or significance of everything, be it a person or a place, an action or a consequence, a possession or an idea, a relationship or our well-being, an experience or our connection to something greater than ourselves.
Many autocrats come to power with good intentions only to morph into monsters. A new model explains common drivers of this inexorable slide.
A Swedish study reveals vaccination nudges barely influenced the older, more vulnerable people who needed them but younger people complied. Why?
India, the world’s largest democracy, is holding its national elections over a six-week period starting 19 April. The elections to the 543-member lower house of the parliament (Lok Sabha) with an electorate, numbering 968 million eligible voters, assumes critical importance as India is going through both internal and external changes that are heavily linked to its rising power aspirations and achievements.
At a time when funding for urban infrastructure and the promotion of an overarching global goal—the hard-won SDG 11—have catapulted cities up the international policy agenda, it’s hard to believe that urban issues could ever have been considered marginal.
Ten years ago, almost no one in the United States had heard of Universal Basic Income (UBI). Today, chances are that the average college graduate has not only heard of the idea, but probably holds a very strong opinion about it.
In a speech to the Economic Club of Washington in 2018, Jeff Bezos described how Amazon made sense of the challenge of if and how to design and implement a loyalty scheme for its customers. This was a highly consequential decision for the business; for some time, Amazon had been searching for an answer to the question: “what would loyalty program for Amazon look like?”
A junior software engineer came up with the idea of fast, free shipping. But a big problem was that shipping is expensive. Also, customers like free shipping, so much so that the big eaters at Amazon’s “buffet” would take advantage by free shipping low-cost items which would not be good for Amazon’s bottom-line. When the Amazon finance team modelled the idea of fast, free shipping the results “didn’t look pretty.” In fact, they were nothing short of “horrifying.”
1:1s are crucial in promoting positive outcomes in the workplace. It is essential that direct reports have a strategic approach to these meetings to make sure they receive the help they need to grow in their career.
100 million Americans hold medical debt which causes people to forgo or be denied necessary medical care. Luke Messac, a historian and physician, looks at five unexpected things about medical debt.
What do you think will be the next big management trend? We asked Academy of Management Annual Meeting attendees for their predictions.
Today, there are three dominant and competing models of digital regulation—the US, China, and the EU. Explore the nuances and implications of each model in the infographic.
There are multiple rewards and risks that stem from how we manage our reputation, from the macro level for countries and governments through to the meso level for organisations and to the micro level for leaders and managers.
Europe’s soaring inflation and energy prices highlight the need to measure poverty and policy responses in non-monetary ways.
Women’s history in sports has in fact been a long series of shocks that have reshaped the world of athletics as well as the possibilities that exist for women everywhere. In episode 80 of The Oxford Comment, we discussed tennis greats Althea Gibson and Billie Jean King and the legacies for women in sports with scholars Ashley Brown and Susan Ware.