Feature Channels: Economics

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Imagine a fleet of driverless taxis roaming your city, ready to pick you up and take you to your destination at a moment’s notice. While this may seem fantastical, it may be only a matter of time before it becomes reality. And according to a new study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, such a system would both be cost-effective and greatly reduce per-mile emissions of greenhouse gases.

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When lawyers blow the whistle on clients, should they be financially rewarded by the government? Kathleen Clark, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, and co-author Nancy Moore, JD, of Boston University School of Law, tackle this issue in their article, “Financial Rewards for Whistleblowing Lawyers,” slated for the November issue of the Boston College Law Review.

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Falling gas prices can shorten the time it takes a house to sell and can increase the selling price, according to results from an ongoing longitudinal study by Florida Atlantic University and Longwood University faculty.

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Seven out of 10 college students feel stressed about their personal finances, according to a new national survey.Nearly 60 percent said they worry about having enough money to pay for school, while half are concerned about paying their monthly expenses.

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New research identifies the types of investors who are vigilant about corporate fraud, but finds that most of those investors are tracking the wrong red flags – meaning the warning signs they look for are clear only after it’s too late to protect their investment.

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In a new study of five-year spreads on credit default swap contracts for more than 2,000 U.S. and international firms, a finance researcher at the University of Arkansas found that strong property rights and transparency are key in securing a stable financial future for companies amid a widespread rise in sovereign risk around the globe.

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"How American Can Spend Its Way Back to Greatness" explains how the nation's money supply is created and outlines how Congress could create a new money stream to directly fund the nation's most urgent needs.

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Through a randomized controlled trial of more than 30,000 households in Michigan – where one-quarter of the households were encouraged to make residential energy efficiency investments and received assistance – economists find that the costs to deploy the efficiency upgrades were about double the energy savings.

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Studying house sales in central Montreal before and after the Bixi bike sharing system was launched in 2009, researchers at McGill found that a typical home in the central Montreal area they studied had about 12 stations nearby, which had increased its value by 2.7% - or $8650 on average. This benefits owners and municipalities through taxes. Cities considering the implementation or expansion of bicycle share systems should take this into account in addition to environmental and health benefits.

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Medicare, which is already the costliest public health insurance program in the world, is costing taxpayers an excess of $2 billion annually because of a practice called “upcoding” in private Medicare Advantage plans, according to research by an economist at The University of Texas at Austin.

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new study finds that having a female manager doesn’t necessarily equate to higher salaries for female employees. In fact, women can sometimes take an earnings hit relative to their male colleagues when they go to work for a female manager.

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Over 1.5 million people currently work in the care sector in the UK and as the population ages, the demands for care and employees will increase. However, the health and social care sector have experienced challenges in recent years as a result of austerity measures in the public sector which has had implications for the pay and pensions of those working in the sector. With growing demands and fewer resources, the issue of workforce planning has become increasingly critical. Research commissioned by the Borough of Poole and The Dorset Better Together Programme and carried out by Bournemouth University’s National Centre for Post-Qualifying Social Work and Professional Practice has explored some of the barriers to employment and how they can be tackled.

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Palm oil is widely used in food and cosmetics. But the conversion of forests to oil palm plantations has devastated many species, including tigers and elephants. A new study shows willingness among consumers to pay higher supermarket prices for palm oil made by companies that help to protect endangered species.

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Though there’s been a significant decrease in the number of Americans who are angry at the current economic situation in this country, dropping from 44 percent a year ago to 33 percent at the end of 2014, that decrease does not translate to a higher level of trust toward the U.S. government, which remains only at 18 percent, according to the latest data from the Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index

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A shortage of skilled workers is often why many employers say they struggle to find qualified employees to fill vacancies. However, an Iowa State University economic analysis finds that some of the evidence used to support the skills gap debate is weak.

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: anxiety and fermented foods, glucose transport, research reproducibility, new MRI approach, enterprise transformation, prostate cancer, oceanography, HPV vaccine, probiotics, clinical research.

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The 50 hospitals in the United States with the highest markup of prices over their actual costs are charging out-of-network patients and the uninsured, as well as auto and workers’ compensation insurers, more than 10 times the costs allowed by Medicare, new research suggests. It’s a markup of more than 1,000 percent for the same medical services.

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From infrastructure to climate change, the disaster impacts areas of daily life.

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The latest national housing market index produced by Florida Atlantic University and Florida International University faculty indicates it is becoming more favorable for renters than buyers in terms of wealth accumulation.

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A new nationwide study reveals that the kind of cities that attract college graduates has changed since the 1990s.

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The NHS could achieve up to twice as much with the resources that the Government plans to spend introducing a full seven day service in the NHS in England, according to new research from The University of Manchester.

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: income inequality, climate change, genetics, cancer, precision medicine, medical imaging, schizophrenia, research funding, molecular biology and skin cancer.

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Holding cynical beliefs about others may have a negative effect on your income according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

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The increasing inequality in income and wealth in recent years, together with excessive pay packages of CEOs in the U.S. and abroad, is of growing concern.. Columbia Engineering Professor Venkat Venkatasubramanian has led a study that examines income inequality through a new approach: he proposes that the fairest inequality of income is a lognormal distribution (a method of characterizing data patterns in probability and statistics) under ideal conditions, and that an ideal free market can “discover” this in practice.

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Participants went through MRIs, which showed their brain activity when they viewed campaign ads on cage-free eggs.

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: genetics, cancer, nanotech, elderly care, marketing research, energy, children's health, and immunology.

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The method used to calculate Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, the most trusted benchmark for U.S. residential real estate prices, contains a flaw that likely could lead to misstating its monthly estimates, according to a newly published study led by faculty at Florida Atlantic University.

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A new study from researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst concludes that workers and governments have paid a heavy price in lost employment, wages and taxes over the past 35 years as Main Street firms mimicked Wall Street by speculating in financial assets, while the benefits from these financial investments were reaped primarily by corporate debt and equity holders, fostering inequality and eroding general social welfare.

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Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at a paltry 0.2 percent for the first quarter of 2015, but Rajeev Dhawan of the Economic Forecasting Center at Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business doesn’t think the factors that drove this stagnation are here to stay.

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Banning cellphones in schools reaps the same benefits as extending the school year by five days, according to a study co-authored by an economist at The University of Texas at Austin.

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Research from the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin has identified a way to accurately predict which delinquent credit card accounts will repay an outstanding balance.

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A $7.5 million European Union-funded research project of more than four years proposes new public-private partnerships between government and private businesses that enhances security and controls and also employs intelligent software tools to reduce administrative loads.

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How can 2015 grads just starting their career journey improve the odds that their first job is the right one — especially this year when employers are hiring, and there may be a second or third offer waiting in the wings?

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A nationwide study, “Uncovering Waste in U.S. Healthcare,” from authors at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, finds that spending on post-acute care in skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) provides a key signal of inefficiency in the health care system, leading to higher spending and lower patient survival.

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: WWII and PTSD, stem cells, cancer, racial segregation, supplements and glaucoma, medical research, cybersecurity, vision research, and physics.

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New projections of growth in global wine markets to 2018 show Asian countries will dominate global wine consumption and import growth, led by a surge in wine consumption in China.

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Some 9 million American families lost their homes to foreclosure during the late 2000s housing bust, driving many to economic ruin and in search of new residences. Hardest hit were black, Latino, and racially integrated neighborhoods, according to a new Cornell University analysis of the crisis.

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Wake Forest employer relations expert Mercy Eyadiel says there has been a shift from an employer market to a student market in 2015. Hiring is increasing, but the employment landscape remains competitive.

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More jobs are offered this spring for new grads, but students still in school should prepare for the job hunt before they graduate, says Joy Jones with UAB Career and Professional Development.

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A new study coauthored by Wellesley economist, Professor Daniel E. Sichel, reveals that innovation in an important technology sector is happening faster than experts had previously thought, creating a backdrop for better economic times ahead.

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Babson College Economics Professor Dr. Kent Jones has authored Reconstructing the World Trade Organization for the 21st Century − An Institutional Approach.