https://phys.org/science-news/economics-business/ en-us The latest news on economics research, business research, management sciences 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 Additional product displays in supermarket aisles—so-called secondary placements—are intended to encourage impulse purchases. However, a new study by Mathias C. Streicher of the University of Innsbruck shows that excessive use of secondary displays narrows the aisles, reducing in-aisle browsing and sales. In real-world field experiments, sales rose by about 11.5% after removal of secondary displays from a congested aisle, even though fewer products were on display overall. The study appears in PLOS One. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-crowded-supermarket-aisles-sales-field.html Economics & Business Wed, 22 Apr 2026 14:00:05 EDT news696070981 Can you tell if you're working with a narcissist or a psychopath? A new study suggests that people's job choices may offer some clues, especially in fields built on leadership and persuasion such as business, politics, and law, where such darker traits are more common. Those in creative fields or nature-focused work may be more likely to encounter individuals with a Machiavellian way of thinking, according to findings published in Personality and Individual Differences. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-people-dark-personality-traits-naturally.html Social Sciences Sat, 18 Apr 2026 13:10:01 EDT news695314226 Improved methods for social and behavioral sciences research could help enhance public trust in science, says a new study that investigated the robustness of data analysis to understand whether it reliably stood the test of time. It did. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-science.html Social Sciences Thu, 16 Apr 2026 18:40:01 EDT news695570281 If you can't get no satisfaction, then maybe it's because happiness does not only stem from pleasure or a meaningful existence. Instead, a new Simon Fraser University study suggests that freedom is the key to happiness. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-autonomy-key-happiness.html Social Sciences Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:20:02 EDT news695474282 A University of Houston researcher and his collaborators have developed a mathematical model that helps identify whether a competitive environment is healthy, stagnant or skewed. Published in the journal npj Complexity, the study led by UH Computer Science Professor Ioannis Pavlidis presents a general, falsifiable framework for assessing competition quality and fairness. The model works by analyzing the statistical pattern of repeated success and reverse-engineering the kind of competitive system that produced it. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-mathematical-signature-competition-fair-winner.html Mathematics Thu, 09 Apr 2026 13:20:05 EDT news694954861 A study of nearly 200,000 Amazon reviews shows that the usefulness of online product reviews depends not only on what is said, but on how the information is structured. The researchers, from the Universities of Cambridge and Queensland, studied Amazon reviews for products ranging from clothing to food to electronics. They found that how the information is organized matters as much as what is said, and that different review structures are more or less helpful, depending on how highly the reviewer has rated the product. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-online-sentiment-readers.html Economics & Business Wed, 08 Apr 2026 18:10:01 EDT news694886461 Researchers at the University of Manchester have used artificial intelligence to uncover a complex picture behind England's long-running productivity puzzle, challenging the idea that the country's economic performance can be explained by a simple North-South divide. In a major study published in the Spatial Economic Analysis journal, Professor Cecilia Wong and Dr. Helen Zheng applied "GeoAI" techniques—combining geography and artificial intelligence—to analyze how productivity varies across local authorities in England between 2010 and 2022. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ai-reveals-england-productivity-complex.html Economics & Business Wed, 01 Apr 2026 22:50:01 EDT news694258406 An individual's position in the income hierarchy is a stronger predictor of well-being than either how much they earn or how large the income gap is between them and others, finds new research from the University of Leeds, the University of Oxford and the University of Warwick. The study, published in Nature Communications, shows that the strength of the relationship between income rank and well-being varies significantly depending on the social and cultural context in which people live—and that strong civic and community life can substantially reduce it. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-income-worldwide-social-capital-buffer.html Social Sciences Tue, 31 Mar 2026 17:50:01 EDT news694195081 Lil Miquela has 2.5 million Instagram followers, a high-fashion wardrobe, and a clear political voice. She has advocated for Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQI+ community, fronted major brand campaigns, and built a devoted global fanbase. She also has no pulse. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-millions-dont.html Social Sciences Tue, 31 Mar 2026 14:40:05 EDT news694175161 When you go out to run errands on the weekend, you're on a "tour" as defined by human mobility researchers. Same if you book a guided tour of a famous city or take a trip on a cruise boat that reaches multiple ports. A characteristic of such tours is that you begin and end up in the same place and take intermediate stops along the way. The number of stops is the tour's "length." https://phys.org/news/2026-03-science-delivery.html Mathematics Mon, 30 Mar 2026 14:20:02 EDT news694089403