Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World

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What happens when Walmart comes to Nicaragua?

By Hope Michelson
Walmart now has stores in more than fifteen developing countries in Central and South America, Asia and Africa. A glimpse at the scale of operations: Nicaragua, with a population of approximately six million, currently has 78 Walmart retail outlets with more on the way. That’s one store for every 75,000 Nicaraguans; in the United States there’s a Walmart store for every 69,000 people.

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Responsible Wealth should oppose the GST Grandfather Exemption

By Edward Zelinsky
In the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, Congress and President Obama recently agreed that the federal estate tax will be imposed at a 40% rate on estates over $5,000,000. On 11 December 2012, a group of affluent Americans, organized under the banner of Responsible Wealth, had called for a stronger federal estate tax. In particular, Responsible Wealth urged that federal estate taxation begin at a rate of 45% on estates over $4,000,000.

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Should we be worried about global quasi-constitutionalization?

By Grahame Thompson
Have we seen a potentially new form of global governance quietly emerging over the last decade or so, one that is establishing a surrogate and informal process of the constitutionalization of global economic and political relationships, something that is creeping up on us almost unnoticed? This issue of ‘global constitutionalization’ has become an important topic of analysis over recent years.

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Limit the estate tax charitable deduction

By Edward Zelinsky
One widely-discussed possibility for reforming the federal income tax is limiting the deduction for charitable contributions. Whether or not Congress amends the Code to restrict the income tax deduction for charitable contributions, Congress should limit the charitable contribution deduction under the federal estate and gift taxes. Such a limit would balance the need for federal revenues with the desirability of encouraging charitable giving.

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Tax reform and the fiscal cliff

Taxes have always been an incendiary topic in the United States. A tax revolt launched the nation and the modern day Tea Party invokes the mantle of the early revolutionaries to support their call for low taxes and limited government. And yet, despite the passion and the fury, most Americans are remarkably clueless about how our tax system works. Surveys indicate that they have no idea about how they are taxed, much less about the overall contours of federal and state tax systems.

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Contraception, HSAs and the unnecessary controversy about religious conscience

By Edward Zelinsky
Among the bitter but unnecessary controversies of this election year was the dispute about the federal government’s mandate that employers provide contraception as part of their health care coverage for their employees. Employers religiously opposed to contraception believe this mandate infringes their right of Free Exercise of religion under the First Amendment. Advocates of the contraception mandate characterize it as vital to women’s health and choice.

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Should fishing communities play a greater role in managing fisheries?

By Robert Deacon
Marine fisheries around the world are in a state of decline. Each decade the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reports that a larger fraction of the world’s fisheries are overexploited or depleted. Historical trends in individual fisheries have led some scientists to predict all major fisheries will be collapsed by mid-century. The economic status of these resources is even more dismal.

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Should we want a business leader in the White House?

By Andrew Polsky
During the first two presidential debates, Mitt Romney repeatedly invoked his business experience as a key qualification for the White House. He uttered phrases such as “I know how to make this economy grow” and “I know how to grow jobs” at least a half dozen times in his second debate with President Barack Obama. The notion that a business leader would bring to the presidency a uniquely useful skill set, especially in a period of sluggish economic growth, has a certain appeal.

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New York’s “Dress Wars”

By Kal Raustiala
In the depths of the Great Depression, TIME magazine offered readers a glimpse at New York’s “Dress Wars.” Knockoffs, TIME wrote, were everywhere in the garment industry, and “dirty tricks” increasingly ubiquitous: “Among such tricks was the universal and highly developed practice of copying original styles. By the early Depression years it had gone so far that no exclusive model was sure to remain exclusive 24 hours; a dress exhibited in the morning at $60 would be duplicated at $25 before sunset and at lower prices later in the week.”

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The Giving Pledge and private foundations

By Edward Zelinsky
The Giving Pledge, founded by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, has announced that eleven more affluent families have taken the Pledge and have thereby committed to donating at least half of their wealth to charity. Among these new Pledgers is Gordon Moore, a legendary founder of Intel and the father of Moore’s Law which postulates that the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles roughly every two years.

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Permission-giving: from Cromwell to Kate Middleton

Some of my more radical academic colleagues remain inordinately sceptical of the role of individual leaders set against the tectonic plates of economic systems, social classes, genders, political alliances and ethnic groups. To suggest that individual leaders might make a difference is to place an unwarranted responsibility upon mere actors when the real issue is ‘the system’ – whatever the system is.

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Top 3 differences between The Colbert Report and The Daily Show

How does being a guest on The Colbert Report compare to being a guest on The Daily Show? Here’s a breakdown!
More Face Time with Everyone: Backstage at The Daily Show was a blur; I had no sooner arrived than I was in make-up, met Jon, and was heading out into the lights. By contrast, I had lots of time at The Colbert Report to see the stage, meet the producers, and chat with sundry tech people.

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Did the government invent the Internet?

By Richard R. John
Did the government invent the Internet? In a 23 June 2012 Wall Street Journal article, journalist L. Gordon Crovitz answered “no.” “It’s important to understand the history of the Internet,” Crovitz contended, “because it’s too often wrongly cited to justify big government.” Crovitz gave the credit instead to researchers at Xerox PARC who in the 1970s developed the Ethernet to link different computer networks.

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Meles Zenawi: In his own words

By Peter Gill
In the rush to judgement on the record and the legacy of Meles Zenawi as Ethiopia’s leader for the past two decades, the man himself has barely left the shadows. Yes, he achieved record economic growth for his country, and yes, he was a force for stability and an ally in the West’s ‘war on terror,’ and no, he was certainly not a liberal democrat.

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Knockoff fashion, trend-setting, and the creative economy

Conventional wisdom holds that copying kills creativity, and that laws that protect against copies are essential to innovation and economic success. But are copyrights and patents always necessary? Kal Raustiala and Christopher Sprigman approach the question of incentives and innovation in a wholly new way in The Knockoff Economy — by exploring creative fields where copying is generally legal, such as fashion, food, and even professional football. The University of Virginia spoke with author Christopher Sprigman about the role of knockoffs in the fashion industry and their impact on the creative economy.

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Imagining the Internet and why it matters

By Robin Mansell
Societies are benefitting in numerous ways from an open Internet, not least because of the collaborative culture it seems to favour. Increasingly, however, national and regional legislative initiatives are raising questions about how citizens’ interests (freedom from monitoring of their online activities) can be reconciled with the interests of the state (securing their safety) and of companies (safeguarding their revenue streams).

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