https://phys.org/science-news/economics-business/ en-us The latest news on economics research, business research, management sciences Relationships are all about compromise. From deciding on where to eat dinner with a friend to negotiating chore lists at home, we often experience situations that require some flexibility. But what happens when we must work with others—especially people we don't know—to make a risky decision? That's what Caltech's Dean Mobbs, professor of cognitive neuroscience, and members of his lab set out to explore in a recent study. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-compromise-risky-decisions-biased-blame.html Social Sciences Thu, 02 Jul 2026 17:30:02 EDT news702230102 The COVID-19 pandemic transformed the way people work, making remote and work-from-home (WFH) jobs far more common than ever before. Even after social distancing ended, many companies and employees chose to stick with this model because it offers greater flexibility. People can work from where they already live, avoid long commutes, and enjoy a better work-life balance. For primary caregivers in particular, remote work has made it easier to juggle professional and personal responsibilities. A recent study has found that WFH isn't all sunshine and roses. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-mismatched-worklife-boundaries-home-couples.html Social Sciences Wed, 01 Jul 2026 09:40:03 EDT news702116669 The world is urbanizing fast. In 1975, about 11% of the global population lived in cities with more than 1 million inhabitants. "Today, we estimate that share to be about 24%," says Andrea Musso, junior fellow at the Complexity Science Hub (CSH) and Ph.D. student at ETH Zurich. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-urban-growth-big-cities-smaller.html Social Sciences Mon, 29 Jun 2026 17:40:06 EDT news701957521 When people think of workplace segregation, they usually think of race or gender. Yet Americans are also sorted at work by something employers rarely measure: how they vote. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-politics-door-workplaces.html Economics & Business Thu, 25 Jun 2026 14:40:06 EDT news701609214 Pothole season, summer construction season or maybe bad weather. No matter the time of year, it's no surprise commuters who drive to work may start their day already feeling a bit on edge. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-commute-stress-fuel-workplace-conflict.html Social Sciences Thu, 25 Jun 2026 12:40:09 EDT news701600521 A study examining Fair Workweek laws across five major U.S. jurisdictions finds that labor regulations have made work schedules more predictable for service-sector workers, without triggering wage cuts or benefit reductions. Published in Science Advances, the research titled "Fair Workweek Laws in the U.S.: An Appraisal of Intended and Unintended Consequences" is the most comprehensive evaluation to date of Fair Workweek (FWW) laws, enacted in places like Seattle, Oregon, New York City, Philadelphia and Chicago. These laws require large retail and food-service employers to provide at least two weeks' advance notice of schedules, compensate workers for last-minute changes and ban back-to-back closing and opening shifts. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-fair-workweek-laws-pay-benefits.html Economics & Business Wed, 24 Jun 2026 16:20:08 EDT news701531850 Conventional wisdom says the best predictions are the ones that minimize mistakes, but new research suggests that is not necessarily how people see it. A study published in Management Science has found that when people make or evaluate predictions, they care more about the possibility of being exactly right than about reducing the size of potential errors. In many cases, people prefer predictions that increase the chance of a perfect outcome, even if doing so creates a greater risk of larger mistakes. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-people.html Social Sciences Tue, 23 Jun 2026 19:30:04 EDT news701451061 A study of funded AI startups provides a glimpse of which jobs may be most affected by AI. As AI tools are embraced by industry after industry, the impacts of these tools on jobs remain unclear. Previous analyses have focused on the theoretical capabilities of LLMs, but social factors are also likely to play a role in shaping what aspects of work see AI integration—or full automation. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ai-startups-jobs-affect.html Economics & Business Tue, 23 Jun 2026 11:40:14 EDT news701426942 Men and women achieve similar economic outcomes in negotiations, but female negotiators foster stronger interpersonal relationships, which lead in turn to greater satisfaction with the result and a greater desire to negotiate with that woman again in the future. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-women-effectively-men-people-happier.html Social Sciences Mon, 22 Jun 2026 19:30:01 EDT news701367001 People who are hesitant to try insect-based foods may enjoy the experience more than they expect—and can become more open to expanding their diets in the future, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-youd-bugs.html Social Sciences Mon, 15 Jun 2026 09:00:03 EDT news700481402 Digital matching platforms—from professional networking to ride-sharing and accommodation services—add value by bringing supply and demand into balance. But deep-seated asymmetries can prove difficult to expunge, causing platforms' functionality and productivity to suffer. This imbalance is common for many dual-matching platforms, including online dating services where men vastly outnumber women. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-gender-gating-secret-success-online.html Social Sciences Sun, 14 Jun 2026 07:45:14 EDT news700641877 Financial markets are blind to the economic costs of biodiversity loss, leaving several countries at risk of defaulting on debt, according to new research published in Nature. While environmental degradation is recognized as a serious financial risk, sovereign debt markets currently have no way of accounting for it, leaving US$83 trillion in assets open to mispricing. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-biodiversity-loss-deepen-debt-worldwide.html Economics & Business Wed, 10 Jun 2026 13:40:01 EDT news700310702 Birth rates have been declining worldwide since the peak of the post-Second World War baby boom. Birth rates have now reached below replacement in most of the world, including Australia. Put simply, populations on average aren't replacing themselves. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-birth-declining-world.html Social Sciences Sat, 06 Jun 2026 08:00:05 EDT news699529233 Approximately 88% of organizations around the world implemented artificial intelligence (AI) into at least one business function by the end of 2025, the latest McKinsey Global Survey on the state of AI found. Despite promised productivity gains, passive AI use at work, where employees copy-and-paste AI responses to complete tasks, can make people doubt their skills and find their work meaningless, according to a study co-authored by a faculty member from Penn State's Smeal College of Business that published in Scientific Reports. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-passive-ai-meaninglessness.html Economics & Business Fri, 05 Jun 2026 13:40:07 EDT news699881808 Working from home comes with some major pluses. It's more flexible, there's no more pesky commute, work-life balance improves, and you can even stay in your pajamas all day if you want. But according to a major study of more than 580,000 American workers published in Science, remote work is taking its toll on people's mental health. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-remote-toll-mental-health-american.html Social Sciences Fri, 05 Jun 2026 12:20:03 EDT news699871293 The concept of the "15-Minute City" has gained global traction as a blueprint for more livable, sustainable communities by placing daily essentials—such as grocery stores, schools, restaurants and parks—within easy reach of residents. The idea envisions neighborhoods where people can meet most of their daily needs within a 15-minute walk, bike ride or transit trip from home, reducing automobile dependence while improving quality of life. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-minute-cities-nearby-jobs-streets.html Social Sciences Thu, 04 Jun 2026 16:20:01 EDT news699795787 The rise of remote work since the pandemic has made businesses more reluctant to hire young, inexperienced workers and is the key driver of higher unemployment rates for recent college graduates, a study released Monday has found. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-young-unemployed-remote-ai-problem.html Economics & Business Mon, 01 Jun 2026 14:08:12 EDT news699541669 Global food systems are fragile. Recent shocks such as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the Russian invasion of Ukraine have raised prices and exacerbated food insecurity. Governments are increasingly trying to shield themselves from future food crises, whether caused by conflict, climate shocks, disruptions to global trade or failed harvests. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-global-food-reveals-sufficiency-crises.html Economics & Business Thu, 28 May 2026 16:10:01 EDT news699199681 Artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs) tools are capable of mass-producing academic finance papers that are nearly indistinguishable from human-authored research, according to a new study published in the Journal of Economic Literature. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-ai-mass-papers-indistinguishable-human.html Economics & Business Thu, 28 May 2026 15:30:01 EDT news699198721 The world's urban population increased by 785 million people between 2000 and 2020, but that tells only part of the story. Now, a research team including an expert from the University of Michigan has dug into the demographics of more than 10,000 individual cities to obtain insights that can be lost in the aggregate. The findings are published in the journal Nature Cities. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-analysis-cities-reveals-hidden-people.html Economics & Business Wed, 27 May 2026 17:10:01 EDT news699119942 Fashion and media have become visibly more diverse over the past quarter-century. Yet beneath that surface change, a new study suggests that the industry's central female body ideal has barely shifted. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-bodies-fashion-diversity-ideal-stays.html Social Sciences Fri, 22 May 2026 14:00:06 EDT news698668021 For decades, historians have generally agreed that the progress of small villages as they evolved into cities came at the price of widening inequality. A small group of leaders, kings and priests, would inevitably seize control of the wealth and the gap between rich and poor would grow. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-year-city-defied-history-equal.html Archaeology Tue, 19 May 2026 14:10:01 EDT news698414541 Artificial intelligence (AI) companies influence policy and regulation using similar techniques to Big Tobacco, Big Pharma and Big Oil, according to a new study. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-big-ai-laws-oversight.html Economics & Business Mon, 18 May 2026 20:00:01 EDT news698339732 In chess, faster decisions are on average of higher quality. This is the conclusion of a study that has just been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The team of researchers, which, in addition to Professor Uwe Sunde from LMU, includes scientists from Erasmus University Rotterdam and UniDistance Suisse, analyzed data from professional games of chess. Their aim was to investigate how the time taken to make a complex strategic decision is related to the quality of this decision. Sunde and his colleagues believe the outcome of their research indicates that the decision time reflects the subjectively perceived difficulty of the problem, which can vary depending on the situation. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-professional-chess-analysis-reveals-faster.html Social Sciences Mon, 18 May 2026 16:40:03 EDT news698335861 When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations come to town, it can create a landscape of fear, chilling commerce and school attendance, and now, new research shows that it affects childcare workers. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-economics-ice-upended-childcare-workforce.html Economics & Business Mon, 18 May 2026 16:22:58 EDT news698339775 Work songs, musical pieces designed to be performed or sung while working, have been widely documented across various cultures and in different historical periods. For instance, people in different nations have been known to sometimes sing together while rowing, sailing, harvesting crops or building structures. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-songs-team.html Social Sciences Tue, 12 May 2026 08:00:04 EDT news697708741 Researchers from University of California San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science have found that recent federal grant terminations targeting research on health equity and gender identity have disproportionately affected scientists from the very communities those studies aim to support. The findings were published May 5, 2026 in The Lancet Regional Health—Americas. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-federal-grant-terminations-disproportionately-impact.html Social Sciences Wed, 06 May 2026 12:20:04 EDT news697285262 Fast-food workers in California may be earning more money, but their employers are cutting their hours to make up for the cost of higher pay. That's from a new study published in Applied Economic Letters in early March. Northeastern University postdoctoral research fellow Hitanshu Pandit, who was the author on the paper, used cellphone data to analyze the impact of a law that increased the Golden State's minimum wage for fast-food workers by 25%. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-fast-food-pay-california.html Economics & Business Mon, 27 Apr 2026 09:20:02 EDT news696499683 Humans are generally a cooperative bunch and most of us probably like to think of ourselves as reliable team players. Cooperation is useful for all sorts of reasons, from running a business and managing community resources to supporting our neighbors. But cooperation is fragile and it slowly starts to fizzle out even under favorable conditions, according to a new study published in Nature. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-groups-slowly-conditions-good.html Social Sciences Thu, 23 Apr 2026 13:40:04 EDT news696169358 Natural resources—such as fossil fuels, water, and minerals—are materials found in the environment that are essential for life and highly utilized in production. Though these resources are viewed as essential to economic development and wealth, many resource-rich countries have paradoxically struggled with limited economic growth and unstable political institutions. This phenomenon, known as the "resource curse," challenges the notion that resource abundance automatically translates into economic prosperity and raises the question of how these regions fall into this trap while other less resource-rich countries manage to leverage their resources for sustainable development. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-resource-curse-natural-abundance-edged.html Economics & Business Wed, 22 Apr 2026 18:40:01 EDT news696090858