Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By John Hendry
The word ‘management’ derives from the sixteenth century Italian maneggiare, to handle or control a horse. The application has been extended over the centuries from horses to weapons, boats, sportspeople and nowadays to people and affairs quite generally, but the connotation of control remains.
By Gayle Sulik
The iconic pink breast cancer awareness ribbon – once a consciousness-raising symbol—now functions primarily as a logo for the breast cancer brand.
By John Knight
China is not only soon likely to have the largest economy in the world but it also has the most fascinating because of the challenges that it has successfully met and the challenges that lie ahead for this semi-industrialised economy.
By Edward Zelinsky
Once again, those of us who depend on Metro North’s railroad commuter service found ourselves bereft of adequate transportation to travel to work in Manhattan. Once again, the Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA), which runs Metro North, urged us to avoid Manhattan by telecommuting from our homes for the duration of this service disruption.
By Richard S. Grossman
To what extent should economic and foreign policies be guided by ideology? Are politicians who remain committed to particular policy prescriptions principled representatives? Are they opportunists who ride the popularity of simple, easily explained idea into office?
By Timothy Spangler
In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, much ill-feeling remains towards Wall Street, the investment banks and those individuals who profit from short-term movements in the financial markets. As the crisis has dragged on, more questions are being raised about how the modern financial system actually works.
No one doubts the politics of selecting a Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers has withdrawn from consideration and Janet Yellen, current Vice Chairwoman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, is now the frontrunner. What does the new chair have to expect?
By Eckart Woertz
Syria and Egypt paradigmatically highlight the perils of food security in the Middle East. Oil exports of Egypt, the largest wheat importer of the world, ceased at the end of the 2000’s. Generating enough foreign exchange for food procurement became more difficult and plans for more self-sufficiency have failed in the face of limited water and land resources.
By Maoyong Fan and Yanhong Jin
The prevalence of childhood obesity in the United States has risen dramatically across all racial, gender, and ethnic groups since 1980. Approximately three out of ten children and adolescents in the United States are overweight or obese.
By Binka Kirova and Ivan Penkin
There is nothing random about trademarks. Behind each trademark lies a well-considered move. Symbols are used to create an analogical correspondence between two elements and a concise form of expressing the essence or meaning of a certain object or idea.
This September marks the fifth anniversary of Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy. While US markets have posted a stronger than expected year, full recovery has been slow since the “too big to fail” 2008 financial crisis. Robert W. Kolb takes a look back at Lehman Brothers’ decline in the following excerpt from The Financial Crisis of Our Time.
By Donal Donovan
After many years of extraordinary success the dramatic collapse of the Irish economy in 2008 was unprecedented in the history of post-war industrial countries. Who and what was responsible for the demise of the poster boy “Celtic Tiger?” What lessons can be learned form the Irish debacle and can the Tiger come roaring back?
By Eric W. Orts
On 1 August 2013, Delaware became the nineteenth state in the United States to adopt a version of a benefit corporation statute, which is designed to expand the range of legitimate purposes undertaken by business firms to include the interests of employees, environmental sustainability, and other nontraditional social goals beyond the traditional objective of profit-making for owners and investors.
By Richard S. Grossman
The public has been so fatigued by the flood of appalling economic news during the past five years that it can be excused for ignoring a scandal involving an interest rate that most people have never heard of. In fact, the Libor scandal is potentially a bigger threat to capitalism than the stories that have dominated the financial headlines.
By Karen Nelson-Field
Why is it when a new media platform comes along that everything we know about how advertising works and how consumers behave seems to go out the window? Because the race to discovery means that rigorous research with duplicated results are elusive.
By Edward Zelinsky
A group of California state senators, including senate president pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, has called for California’s public employee pension plans to protest Russia’s homophobic laws and policies by ceasing to make Russian investments. While the senators are right to denounce Russia’s assault on human rights, they are wrong to call for the divestment of the Golden State’s public pension funds.