https://phys.org/science-news/economics-business/ en-us The latest news on economics research, business research, management sciences At its best, negotiation is the art of mutual value creation. But once created, that value must be capitalized upon in the post-negotiation environment. That means the formal end of negotiations is often only the end of the beginning. Time will tell whether the gains and losses sustained during a negotiation are as solid as they seem when the counterparties get up from the table. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-aftermath-winners-losers-vice-versa.html Social Sciences Tue, 20 Oct 2026 14:40:19 EDT news711713852 The likely manipulation of citation numbers by research paper mills in high-impact cancer journals has been uncovered by an international team of academic researchers. Their findings point to an organized campaign to inflate citations on paper mill–produced journal articles published in established molecular oncology journals. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-fraudulent-paper-mills-scientific-citations.html Economics & Business Fri, 16 Oct 2026 10:00:05 EDT news711362048 The first definitive evidence of when post-Roman lead production began in one of Europe's largest medieval lead-producing regions, the Derbyshire Peak District in central England, has been uncovered by archaeologists after centuries of mining had erased much of the archaeological evidence. The work has been published in Antiquity. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-human-impact-britain-largest-medieval.html Archaeology Mon, 12 Oct 2026 19:00:08 EDT news711015128 Between 1880 and 1912, no official excavations took place at Kish. Yet museums from London and Paris to New York were somehow acquiring brand-new tablets from the legendary old city. As it turns out, local Iraqis had been excavating the site years before the "official" excavations at Kish resumed. But while the official excavations are remembered and celebrated, the local Iraqis have been erased from their own history. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-letters-reveal-forgotten-role-baghdad.html Archaeology Mon, 12 Oct 2026 12:40:06 EDT news711023081 Americans Robert Hall and Michael Woodford were awarded the Nobel economics prize Monday for their work on how monetary and fiscal policy can better stabilize disruptive economic fluctuations. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-americans-hall-woodford-economics-nobel.html Economics & Business Mon, 12 Oct 2026 07:02:09 EDT news711007280 Pokémon, sports and other physical trading and collectible cards have been around for decades but have surged in popularity since COVID. These cards are usually obtained through gambling-like packs containing random cards. Most packs do not offer any highly desirable cards, but a few packs will. Consumers, often including children, therefore buy many packs in the hope of obtaining rare chase cards. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-card-odds-rare-cards.html Social Sciences Thu, 08 Oct 2026 21:40:01 EDT news710677562 Our experience of eating is shaped by the combined influence of vision, smell, touch and taste. The way food is presented can shape diners' expectations before they even taste it. Visual features, such as arrangement and aesthetic design, can influence perceptions of taste, quality, healthiness and overall appeal. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-plating-sauce-placement-dish-healthier.html Social Sciences Thu, 08 Oct 2026 12:20:02 EDT news710676841 Ahead of World Mental Health Day on Oct. 10, attention is turning to the question of what causes psychological strain at work. A study by Bielefeld University shows that inappropriate tasks are not the only factor associated with exhaustion. Changes in day-to-day work can also leave employees feeling exhausted, even when the number of burdensome tasks decreases. Perceived uncertainty plays an important role. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-unnecessary-tasks-links-greater-employee.html Social Sciences Wed, 07 Oct 2026 16:00:01 EDT news710595157 A study of the oil, gas and petroleum industry has found that "quiet firing" by employers is associated with higher levels of "quiet quitting" among employees, while strong workplace relationships can weaken that effect. The research appears in the International Journal of Business Information Systems. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-quiet-linked-higher-employees.html Economics & Business Tue, 06 Oct 2026 19:40:06 EDT news710518921 Favorite songs can stay with us for a lifetime, but their shelf life on the music charts is fleetingly short. Tracks that shoot up the U.S. Billboard charts may flood the airwaves for a short while, but just a few weeks later, they have vanished. The outlook for albums is far more enduring, according to a new paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-songs-faster-billboard-albums.html Social Sciences Tue, 06 Oct 2026 14:20:15 EDT news710511843 When everyone in a meeting voices the same opinion, an organization can miss important warning signs and new ideas. A research team from KAIST suggests that when members feel securely accepted within their group, they can express dissenting opinions in greater detail and more persuasively, and other members may be more willing to use those opinions in decision-making. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-group-dissenters-stronger-arguments.html Social Sciences Sat, 03 Oct 2026 17:00:06 EDT news709827267 Since its launch in 1998, Google, the world's leading search engine, has transformed how people find information online. For years, search results appeared as ranked lists of sources: Google decided what to show, but users decided what to read and whom to trust. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-extensive-reveals-gaps-google-ai.html Economics & Business Tue, 29 Sep 2026 13:20:07 EDT news709903022 AI tools are increasingly replacing human judgments in some settings. For instance, resume-screening algorithms are often used in hiring, where they may improve efficiency and consistency in decision-making. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-identical-hiring-algorithms-echo-chambers.html Economics & Business Tue, 29 Sep 2026 11:20:21 EDT news709893661 Who, really, is the best player in baseball? Ask five sports media outlets and you may get five different answers. Rankings can vary dramatically from one source to another, change from year to year and leave out different players altogether, making it difficult to determine where there is genuine consensus and where opinions diverge. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-statisticians-sports.html Economics & Business Mon, 28 Sep 2026 17:00:08 EDT news709817281 Put yourself in the shoes of a bootmaker in 19th-century England. Bootmaking was a sophisticated craft that involved cutting and stitching leather. It required skill, experience and time. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-bootmaking-victorian-england-future.html Economics & Business Mon, 28 Sep 2026 08:40:02 EDT news709803541 A widely held belief that women have more emotional intelligence than men does not hold up under scrutiny, according to a large study of research spanning three decades. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-assumption-women-emotional-intelligence-men.html Social Sciences Thu, 24 Sep 2026 10:50:01 EDT news709465161 New research reveals retailers are losing money through two kinds of problematic returns: deliberate fraud and opportunistic abuse of generous return policies. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-buy-retail-fraud-abuse-explored.html Social Sciences Wed, 23 Sep 2026 10:20:03 EDT news709372563 Young people who grow up experiencing persistent poverty are more than three times as likely to be not in education, employment or training (NEET) at 17 or 23 (3.3 and 3.4 times, respectively), according to new analysis of the UK Millennium Cohort Study by the University of Liverpool and the University of Manchester, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-poverty-triples-young-people-likelihood.html Economics & Business Wed, 16 Sep 2026 10:00:13 EDT news708762902 In March 2021, Berkeley, Calif., became the first city in the world to ban the display of sugary beverages and snacks in store checkout lanes, where candy, chocolate and soda are commonly placed to encourage impulse buying while shoppers are in line. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-healthy-checkout-policy-soda-sales.html Economics & Business Fri, 11 Sep 2026 13:40:05 EDT news708343261 Paul K. Piff, UC Irvine associate professor of psychology, has officially been recognized for what millions of frustrated commuters have long suspected: The fancier the car, the worse the driver. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-psychologist-ig-nobel-rich-drivers.html Social Sciences Thu, 10 Sep 2026 17:50:01 EDT news708279121 A firm handshake used to be all a job candidate needed to make a good first impression, but today a growing number of firms are relying on artificial intelligence to screen applicants. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ai-robot-affect-behavior.html Economics & Business Thu, 10 Sep 2026 12:39:27 EDT news708262709 Wealth redistribution policies currently under discussion in international forums could avert between 6.6 million and 29.5 million deaths by 2030, according to a study published in The Lancet and led by ISGlobal in collaboration with other leading economic and health research institutions. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-taxing-billionaires-redistributing-wealth-millions.html Social Sciences Wed, 09 Sep 2026 08:40:04 EDT news708161522 One-third of young scientists who had been planning careers in academic research changed their minds in the spring of 2025, according to a new survey. Fewer expected to remain in higher education or work in the U.S., or felt that pursuing a Ph.D. was the right decision. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-survey-young-future-science.html Economics & Business Mon, 07 Sep 2026 17:00:03 EDT news708011103 It's difficult to imagine a song like Queen's 1975 "Bohemian Rhapsody" topping the charts today. Almost six minutes long, it moves through several radically different musical sections and famously ignores the conventional structure of a pop song. It seems almost designed to break the rules of what a hit single should be. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-hyperselection-modern-life-efficient-pleasant.html Social Sciences Mon, 07 Sep 2026 11:20:03 EDT news707992785 Michele Gelfand has studied and taught negotiation for years. A professor of organizational behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business, she sees negotiation as a skill that is imperative for everyone to learn. "It's not something we're born with," she says. "It's something we learn over time." https://phys.org/news/2026-09-class-workers-higher-pay.html Social Sciences Wed, 02 Sep 2026 10:40:10 EDT news707560921 Before buying a product, booking a hotel or streaming a movie, many people check online reviews. But not every glowing recommendation or one-star takedown reflects a genuine customer experience. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-qa-online-age.html Social Sciences Tue, 01 Sep 2026 10:40:07 EDT news707463362 Two administrations, the Biden administration and the second Trump administration, reached opposite conclusions about whether vehicle emissions standards should be rolled back. These conclusions came from different assumptions, including whether avoiding air pollution has value to society and the degree to which car buyers value future fuel savings from getting a more efficient vehicle. Both assumptions matter, and disagreement over either accounts for hundreds of billions of dollars in the government's cost-benefit math on vehicle emissions standards—math that, in this year's rollback, also assumes gas prices are lower than what drivers are actually paying at the pump. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-reverses-case-vehicle-emissions-standards.html Economics & Business Mon, 31 Aug 2026 18:10:04 EDT news707415242 Artificial intelligence can create realistic depictions of just about anything, but that does not mean advertisers should lean on the technology, according to a study led by University of Mississippi professors. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-ai-ads-succeed.html Economics & Business Mon, 31 Aug 2026 15:20:01 EDT news707398741 On the surface, posting online reviews looks like a win-win activity. It helps both businesses we like and people who might frequent them. But although posting reviews can benefit others, it can also put us all at risk, according to new research from the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. It can inadvertently expose our personal connections and make us and our online friends more vulnerable to cyberattacks. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-length-online-scammers-friends.html Social Sciences Sun, 30 Aug 2026 11:00:02 EDT news706979465 The capital of any business comes in (at least) two categories. There's the kind that has a price—land, cash holdings, etc.—and a less tangible, priceless kind. Reputational capital falls squarely into the latter category. Try as they might, companies cannot buy positive public opinion, even with the largest marketing budgets. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-fake-customer-businesses-big.html Economics & Business Thu, 27 Aug 2026 09:20:01 EDT news707034481