https://phys.org/science-news/economics-business/ en-us The latest news on economics research, business research, management sciences From front-line emergency service workers to policy professionals, teachers, and nurses, the public sector is filled with everyday heroes. But how motivated is your friendly neighborhood public servant? Findings from a new study conducted across Australia and New Zealand have discovered that the answer is in their work environment. The findings are published in the journal Review of Public Personnel Administration. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-sector-workers-based-environment-personal.html Economics & Business Tue, 14 Apr 2026 21:00:03 EDT news695384427 Forecasts of the impact of artificial intelligence range from the apocalyptic to the utopian. An October 2025 report from Senate Democrats, for example, predicted AI will destroy millions of U.S. jobs. A couple of years earlier, consultant company McKinsey forecast AI will add trillions to the global economy, while emphasizing job losses can be mitigated by training workers to do new things. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-industries-exposed-ai-productivity-gains.html Economics & Business Tue, 14 Apr 2026 14:40:02 EDT news695388301 The University of Phoenix Career Institute has released its sixth annual Career Optimism Index, a recurring national workforce research study of 5,000 U.S. working adults and 1,000 employers fielded January 21–February 6, 2026. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-workers-leveraging-ai-career-mobility.html Economics & Business Tue, 14 Apr 2026 08:20:01 EDT news695372522 The well-being of a supervisor is reflected through supervisor-subordinate relationships in employee motivation and performance, and consequently, in the company's competitiveness. In his doctoral research at the University of Vaasa, Project Researcher Jussi Tanskanen demonstrates that an exhausted leader lacks the resources to maintain high-quality relationships with subordinates, leading to a collapse in employee dedication. This phenomenon is particularly pronounced in today's intensive work environment and remote work settings. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-boss-team-energy.html Economics & Business Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:10:01 EDT news695314989 Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is opening the door for more researchers to conduct consumer studies than ever before. But that same accessibility may push the field toward increasingly generic results—and ultimately disconnected from real human behavior. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-genai-consumer-generic-biased-results.html Economics & Business Mon, 13 Apr 2026 19:20:04 EDT news695312761 Proposals to raise the minimum wage are often met with arguments that independent businesses may be vulnerable to such increases. In a new study, "Who's Afraid of the Minimum Wage? Measuring the Impacts on Independent Businesses Using Matched U.S. Tax Returns," researchers examined how small and medium-sized firms accommodated minimum wage hikes along product and labor market margins. The study found that firms reacted to increases in minimum wage differently depending on their size, but most adapted well, and the effect on workers was also largely positive. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-small-medium-sized-independent-firms.html Economics & Business Mon, 13 Apr 2026 17:20:07 EDT news695306521 Artificial intelligence could soon allow powerful companies to charge each customer a different price for the same product, based on what they think each individual is willing to pay. That is the warning from new research co-authored by competition law academic Dr. Miroslava Marinova at the University of East London, which argues that the real risk is not simply higher prices, but hidden, personalized pricing that consumers cannot see or understand. The paper is published in the Journal of Competition Law & Economics. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ai-pricing-pays-price.html Economics & Business Mon, 13 Apr 2026 13:40:01 EDT news695302742 Information and communication technology (ICT) has reshaped our lives, how we live, how we work, how we entertain ourselves. That much is true, at least for the developed and developing world. ICT refers to everything from smartphones and laptops to software and cloud-based platforms and, increasingly, to the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), smart devices in the workplace, our homes and places of entertainment and recreation. ICT has enabled constant connectivity and more flexible working arrangements, fundamentally altering the structure of the modern workplace. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-stressed-digital-tools-blur-boundaries.html Social Sciences Mon, 13 Apr 2026 11:20:03 EDT news695296236 A guaranteed income program for artists led to improvement in financial stability and reduced debt, but also improved their motivation and artistic output, finds a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-income-artists.html Social Sciences Mon, 13 Apr 2026 07:00:04 EDT news695279941 They choose their clients, set their own rates and manage their businesses like any other entrepreneur. They are independent sex workers—women who work without pimps or agencies, often away from the streets and organized establishments. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-decriminalization-sex-workers-canada-bill.html Social Sciences Sat, 11 Apr 2026 09:30:01 EDT news694861742 A study of HR professionals shows inclusion-focused AI can reduce disability discrimination and improve fairness in real-world recruitment scenarios. Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping how organizations hire. From screening resumes to shortlisting candidates, AI is often promoted as a tool that can remove human bias and make recruitment more objective. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-bias-ai-reshape-hiring-decisions.html Social Sciences Fri, 10 Apr 2026 22:20:02 EDT news695020321 From the Wright brothers' first flight to the speedy development of COVID-19 vaccines, collaboration has been key to innovation. Paradoxically, even competitors can benefit from collaboration—when they hold different pieces of the same puzzle. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-knowledge-firewalls-alliance-firms-weaken.html Economics & Business Fri, 10 Apr 2026 13:40:04 EDT news695041455 As local governments and service providers search for the most effective ways to support people experiencing homelessness, a new report from Portland State University centers on problem solving in the experience of those navigating homelessness. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-unhoused-individuals-permanent-housing-steep.html Social Sciences Fri, 10 Apr 2026 09:00:01 EDT news695029202 Ahead of the NFL Draft's arrival in Pittsburgh on April 23, a West Virginia University professor is challenging one of football's most aggressive strategies and his data suggests teams are getting it wrong. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-accounting-expert-teams-nfl.html Economics & Business Fri, 10 Apr 2026 07:20:01 EDT news695020022 An analysis of survey data on 77,567 people in 19 European countries, including the U.K., by Raphaël Piters, of Sorbonne University, France, found little change in attitudes to work between 1999 and 2017. The researcher analyzed answers to a series of questions about work asked for the European Values Study survey in 1999, 2008, and 2017. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-attitudes-shifted-crisis-european-countries.html Social Sciences Thu, 09 Apr 2026 22:20:01 EDT news694946509 As the global aging population advances and countries face shrinking workforces, a new study focusing on China by IIASA researchers and colleagues from Nanjing University reveals how economic growth can persist despite these changes in age structures. Drawing on detailed data from 336 cities between 2000 and 2020, the research shows that China's long-standing demographic advantage, once powered by a large working-age population, has been steadily overtaken as the primary driver of growth by a new engine: the skills of its workforce. The work is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-skills-age-economic-driver-china.html Social Sciences Thu, 09 Apr 2026 19:00:03 EDT news694971542 Quitting tobacco could give a major economic uplift to the incomes of more than 20 million households in India, suggests an economic analysis published in the open access journal BMJ Global Health. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-tobacco-climb-ladder-million-indian.html Economics & Business Thu, 09 Apr 2026 18:30:03 EDT news694952042 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 new study, published in the British Journal of Management, examines the high-profile cases of Theranos, Purdue Pharma, Enron, and Wirecard, and claims that the desire to pin the blame on individuals has allowed the systemic environment enabling each collapse to be overlooked. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-fixation-toxic-leaders-wider-truth.html Social Sciences Thu, 09 Apr 2026 12:40:08 EDT news694950436 Australians don't need an economist to tell them they're hurting at the petrol pump. They feel it every time they pull into a service station, every time they rethink a planned holiday, or every time they've had to squeeze another household bill to fill the tank. But the cost of rising petrol prices isn't only financial. It's emotional, social, and psychological too. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-soaring-petrol-prices-wallet.html Economics & Business Wed, 08 Apr 2026 22:40:01 EDT news694861605 Musicians around the world agree on one thing: streaming platforms are essential for their careers. Most also agree on another: they don't pay enough. A new report from the Oxford Internet Institute and the University of Groningen captures this contradiction across five countries—Brazil, Chile, the Netherlands, Nigeria and South Korea. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-global-musicians-streaming-paradox-uk.html Economics & Business Wed, 08 Apr 2026 19:00:01 EDT news694848772 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 When people interact in person, subtle signals like facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice play a crucial role in communicating intent and meaning, whereas written communications lack these nonverbal cues and can lead to misinterpretation or assumptions. The advent of emojis became a popular tool to provide context to written messages and they work in many settings. But how are they perceived in workplace communications? Not so well. In a study appearing in Collabra: Psychology, researchers from the University of Ottawa have examined how emojis impact perceptions of competence and appropriateness for those who utilize them in professional settings. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-emojis-workplace-communications.html Social Sciences Wed, 08 Apr 2026 16:10:06 EDT news694882832 If you're among the 93% of people who struggle with perfectionism at work, new research suggests that your experience may depend less on your own high standards and more on whether those standards meet your supervisor's expectations. Researchers from the University of Florida Warrington College of Business, writing in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, have found that whether perfectionism helps or harms employees depends largely on whether employees' personal standards align with their supervisors' expectations. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-youre-perfectionist-boss.html Economics & Business Wed, 08 Apr 2026 14:10:01 EDT news694876188 If you ever wondered why the most ruthless characters in corporate dramas, such as Succession, keep rising to the top, new research from the UBC Sauder School of Business suggests that dynamic is not just a TV trope. The study, published in the Journal of Managerial Psychology, found that some managers actively favor employees who display manipulative or self-serving traits when those behaviors help advance the manager's own career goals. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-bosses-reward-dark-traits.html Social Sciences Wed, 08 Apr 2026 12:20:01 EDT news694869272 Some developing country governments spend years making the reforms that international financial institutions want—only to find that their efforts are not rewarded. They may make budgets more transparent, publish their debt obligations, set up independent bodies to monitor government spending, and complete an International Monetary Fund program, but still receive the same ratings from credit agencies. Borrowing costs remain high. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-countries-credit-agencies-lack-problem.html Economics & Business Wed, 08 Apr 2026 12:00:01 EDT news694867322 Superglue, penicillin, X-rays, the pacemaker: All are examples of "happy accidents"—inventions by individuals trying to do one thing, and winding up with something superior to the original objective. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-serendipity-harnessed-unplanned-outcomes-benefits.html Social Sciences Wed, 08 Apr 2026 11:40:03 EDT news694867141 Disinformation communicated by and on behalf of foreign powers is now part and parcel of digital statecraft in the information age, an expert from Cardiff University has said. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-disinformation-eradicate-global-expert.html Economics & Business Tue, 07 Apr 2026 20:10:01 EDT news694773781 The United States is planning new tariffs on some name-brand medicines. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-tariffs-brand-drugs.html Economics & Business Tue, 07 Apr 2026 19:20:01 EDT news694777758 A new study shows that the ups and downs in house prices are far more dramatic than most people think—and that government policies play a big role in making them happen. The researchers analyzed housing markets in 23 OECD countries from 1990 to 2019. They found that during boom-and-bust periods, house prices changed by almost 6% a year, compared to a long-term trend of just 2.6%. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-reveals-housing-booms-built.html Economics & Business Tue, 07 Apr 2026 17:30:05 EDT news694782301