Faculty of Economics and Business

Thomas Piketty visited the Faculty of Economics and Business to deliver the Maddison Lecture in Economic Growth and Development 2018 on May 23. An economics professor at the Paris School of Economics, Piketty became a global household name in 2014 when his...

Unemployment can have damaging consequences for individuals and their families. Job loss often means lower income, increased poverty risk, and worse future employment prospects. Evidence from around the world shows that those who are unemployed have worse...

In the modern workplace, employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) are increasingly seen as important tools of employee satisfaction, retention, and productivity. They present an attractive investment opportunity for employees, who base their investment...

The credo ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) was a key part of the US presidential campaign by Donald Trump in 2016. International trade was an important element of reasoning behind the MAGA slogan. According to Trump, the deficit on the US current account...

What do ING and Marlies Dekkers have in common? Not much, at first sight. After all, ING, a Dutch bank, and Marlies Dekkers, a Dutch fashion house, operate in very different industries and apply completely different strategies. Through the lens of...

The market for micro-finance is booming and cross-border funding for micro-finance institutions (MFIs) is increasing. It is important for microfinance institutions to show their effect in reducing poverty to maintain long-term interest of investors.

There is growing attention to how companies engage with environmental, social and governance issues (ESG).  At the same time, institutional investors, such as pension funds, increasingly engage in dialogue with companies on these issues, but it has not...

How much do people value Facebook? By about $50 a month, according to a recent study of 2885 people by economists at the University of Groningen and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Users value Google searches at $17,530 a year, email at $8,414,...

Organic food production has become an increasingly salient issue. Retailers are increasingly focusing on organic products, and former US President Barack Obama funded a $50 million scheme to help farmers transition to organic methods. This reflects an...

Many creative organizations try to reduce formal hierarchy. They expect managers to take a less prominent role and their teams to be as self-managing as possible. In principle, this is not a bad idea, because a formal hierarchy can constrain creativity....