Economy

Details: Written by: Gerry Everding, Washington University in St. Louis

"Children do not kill careers, but the earlier children arrive the more their mother's income suffers. There is a clear incentive for delaying," says coauthor Raul Santaeulalia-Llopis.

Details: Written by: Kate Stringer, YES! Magazine.

What Small Farms Need to Compete With Corporate Food Most small farms have to follow the same rules as big corporate ones. In Maine, flexible food ordinances have increased the number of small farmers.

Details: Written by: Dean Baker, CEPR

Why Efforts to Privatize The VA Health System Is A Scam There are few areas where there is more bipartisan support than the need to provide adequate health care for the country's veterans. While many of us opposed the war in Iraq and other recent military adventures, we still recognize the need to provide medical services for the people who put their lives at risk.

Details: Written by: Moshe Y. Vardi, Professor of Computer Science, Rice University

Are Robots Really Taking Our Jobs? If you put water on the stove and heat it up, it will at first just get hotter and hotter. You may then conclude that heating water results only in hotter water. But at some point everything changes – the water starts to boil, turning from hot liquid into steam. Physicists call this a “phase transition.”

Details: Written by: Ellen Brown

The War on Savings: The Panama Papers, Bail-Ins, and the Push to Go Cashles Exposing tax dodgers is a worthy endeavor, but the “limited hangout” of the Panama Papers may have less noble ends, dovetailing with the War on Cash and the imminent threat of massive bail-ins of depositor funds.

Details: Written by: Zena Kamash, Lecturer in Roman Art and Archaeology, Royal Holloway

the ancients 4 15 True innovation is hard to find, as few things come out of nothing. Take the now ubiquitous selfie, for example. The format may have changed but the concept of making self-portraits is hundreds, if not thousands of years old. The same is true of many inventions that we typically think of as modern.

Details: Written by: YES! Magazine

7 Ways We Are Already Beginning To Live Locally As a chain of volcanic islands, Hawai‘i doesn’t have coal and natural gas readily available to generate electricity. The state depends on oil, shipped in by tanker, to generate electricity. In 2002, Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) became the first and only member-owned utility company in...

Details: Written by: Alexandre Rodrigues, PhD candidate, , Nottingham Trent University

The Success Of Tesla's Model 3 Goes Far Beyond Its Affordability Tesla Motors has already established its electric cars as fast, well-sized and capable of competing with petrol cars in how far they can go without needing a recharge. Now, the US firm run by Elon Musk appears to have countered the final remaining negative perception of electric vehicles: price.

Details: Written by: Michele Gilman, Venable Professor of Law, University of Baltimore

How The Supreme Court Made Economic Inequality A Whole Lot Worse Economic inequality is now firmly on the public agenda as candidates and voters alike look for someone to blame for stagnant wages, entrenched poverty and a widening gap between rich and poor.

Details: Written by: Richard Morgan, Professor of Molecular Oncology, University of Bradford

Why The High Cost Of Publicly Funded Cancer Drugs? Patients with prostate cancer in England and Wales will now have early access to abiraterone, a drug which can delay the need for chemotherapy. The drug previously cost £3,000 a month, and was not considered “cost-effective” for the NHS until cancers were more advanced – even though patients in Scotland had access to it.

Details: Written by: Ronen Palan, Professor of International Politics, City University London

Six Things A Tax Haven Expert Learned From The Panama Papers The Panama Papers is a treasure trove of information on the activities and clientele of a large, but not atypical law firm operating in an offshore financial centre. In this case, it is a firm called Mossack Fonseca, based in Panama. It follows a series of spectacular leaks by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, including the HSBC files

Details: Written by: Michael A. Livermore, Associate Professor of Law

Activists surround Shell Oil rig in Seattle’s Elliot Bay to protest Arctic drilling plans. Daniella Beccaria/Flickr, CC BY-SA From chants of “Drill, Baby, Drill” to outrage over the BP oil spill, offshore drilling has been highly controversial in recent years. Some view it as a vastly underused revenue source, while others see it as a grave environmental threat. In parts of the Gulf of Mexico, drilling continues

Details: Written by: David S. Pedulla, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology & Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin

When we think about disadvantages and challenges in the labor market, unemployment generally takes center stage, clearly exemplified by the monthly jobs report hype over one stat: the unemployment rate.

Details: Written by: Tanya Monro, Deputy Vice Chancellor Research & Innovation, University of South Australia

Tanya Monro (left), Emma Johnston (centre) and Nalini Joshi (right) at the National Press Club. National Press Club of Australia On Wednesday May 30, Emma Johnston, Nalini Joshi and Tanya Monro spoke at the National Press Club for a special Women Of Science event. Here they outline their views on how to promote greater participation by women at the top levels of science.

Details: Written by: Leslie Macmillan

U.S. Income Inequality Highest Since The Great Depression Income inequality in the United States has been a major flashpoint during the 2016 presidential election, with much debate focused on whether America is divided between “the 1 percent” who make up the wealthy elite and the lagging middle and working classes.

Details: Written by: Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Professor of Economics, Boston University

Why We Have Been Measuring Inequality Wrong Despite appearances to the contrary, this year’s presidential follies have managed to feature at least a few policy discussions amid all the name-calling. Income inequality in particular has animated voters on both sides of the partisan divide, but the solutions advocated by candidates from each party are markedly different.

Details: Written by: Robert Reich

Trump’s and Cruz’s Tax Plans Would Be the Largest Redistributions to the Rich in American History The tax cuts for the rich proposed by the two leading Republican candidates for the presidency – Donald Trump and Ted Cruz – are larger, as a proportion of the government budget and the total economy, than any tax cuts ever before proposed in history.

Details: Written by: Jonathan Wai, Research Scientist, Duke University

The current process of selection could be leaving out some low-income and minority kids. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, CC BY In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education published A Nation At Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform, which documented widespread academic underachievement at every level, concluding:

Details: Written by: Melanie Davern, Senior Research Fellow, McCaughey VicHealth Community Wellbeing Unit, and Director, Community Indicators Victoria, University of Melbourne

Mapping health outcomes and life expectancy against train stations reveals stark inequalities across cities. AAP/Tracey Nearmy The association between life expectancy and postcodes, neighbourhood locations or train stations has been demonstrated in many different locations around the world. These include London and Glasgow in the UK and across the US including California.

Details: Written by: Stefan Hajkowicz, Senior Principal Scientist, Strategy and Foresight, Data61

Automation Won't Destroy Jobs, But It Will Change Them The last few years have seen numerous studies pointing to a bleak future with technology-induced unemployment on the rise. For example, a pivotal 2013 study by researchers at the University of Oxford found that of 702 unique job types in the United States economy, around 47% were at high risk of computerisation.

Details: Written by: Drew Shindell, Professor of Climate Sciences, Duke University

Clean Energy Could Save Hundreds Of Billions In Health Costs If the U.S. moved to electric vehicles, there would be a substantial cut in air pollution – and health benefits to go with it.In Paris late last year, the countries of the world pledged to reduce emissions to keep global warming “well below a 2 degree Celsius” rise in global average temperatures compared with preindustrial levels.