Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
Five years after the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the world waits for recovery. Last time it took a world war and forty million deaths to achieve. In 2008, a domino — Lehman Brothers — fell over, sparking a financial crisis that quickly threatened to bring the developed economies of the world crashing down. “This sucker could go down” was President George W. Bush’s pithy summary.
By Peter E. Earl
Economists traditionally have assumed that all decisions are taken by weighing up costs and benefits of alternative courses of action. In reality, people seem to make their choices in at least three ways, and which way they use depends on the kind of context in which they are choosing.
By David Bartram
People who move to wealthier countries surely expect that migration will lead them to a better life – but new research suggests that economic migrants are unlikely to achieve greater happiness in their adopted country.
By Andy Balmer
Questions about rising prices in the water industry often play out according to the same issues of climate change and poverty. But things have been relatively quiet of late for the water companies, which might, in part, be that the average cost of water per household is relatively small compared to gas and electricity, costing £388 compared to £1279.
By George Economides and Thomas Moutos
According to popular belief, economists rarely manage to predict correctly the consequences of important policy actions. Nevertheless, the case of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is one of those instances which economists did get it right.
By Richard S. Grossman
Britain operated under the gold standard for nearly 100 years before World War I forced Britain — and many other countries — to abandon it. During that century, Britain was the world’s military, financial, and industrial superpower.
By Edward Zelinsky
Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Mardel, Inc. are owned by the Green family. The Greens oppose on religious grounds “morning after” forms of contraception.
By Frédéric G. Sourgens
On Monday, 2 December 2013, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a significant appeal for investor-state arbitration conducted in the United States. Last year, the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit set aside an award rendered by a UNCITRAL tribunal seated in Washington DC and constituted pursuant to the United Kingdom-Argentina BIT in BG Group PLC v Republic of Argentina.
By Chetan Ghate
India’s remarkable economic growth in the last three decades has made it one of the fastest growing economies in the world. While India’s economic growth has been impressive, rapid growth has been accompanied by a slow decline in poverty, persistently high inflation, jobless growth, widening regional disparities, continuing socio-political instability, and vulnerability to balance of payment crises.
By Richard Roberts
The mounting diplomatic crisis in the last week of July 1914 triggered a major financial crisis in London, the world’s foremost international centre, and around the world. In fact, it was the City’s gravest-ever financial crisis featuring a comprehensive breakdown of its financial markets. But it is virtually unknown.
By Eric W. Orts
“Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.” Keynes’ warning applies to debates about skyrocketing levels of executive compensation in the United States and elsewhere.
By Donald Palmer
Wrongdoing in and by organizations is a common occurrence. Ronald Clement tracked firms listed among the Fortune 100 in 1999 and found that 40% had engaged in misconduct significant enough to be reported in the national media between 2000 and 2005.
By Aaron Chalfin
Since 1980, the share of the US population that is foreign born has doubled, rising from just over 6% in 1980 to over 12% in 2010. Compounding this demographic shift, the share of the foreign born population of Mexican origin also doubled, leading to a quadrupling of the fraction of US residents who are immigrants from Mexico
By Paul Dragos Aligica
The issue of institutional diversity, a key theme in the work of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics co-recipient, Elinor Ostrom, is one of the major challenges confronting national states and global governance in our time.
By Tomas Sedlacek
Descartes’s scientific approach to perceiving the world unquestionably represented a huge breakthrough, and this is doubly true for economists. We have seen that the notion of the invisible hand of the market existed long before Smith.
By Subhayu Bandyopadhyay, Todd Sandler, and Javed Younas
In recent years, developing nations have been major venues of terrorism. One significant problem caused by terrorism in developing nations is the reduction of foreign direct investment (FDI) into these nations as potential investors seek safer locations.