Faced by falling oil prices and plunging profits, big oil companies are investing in renewables and clean energy, but still focussing on fossil fuels.

The Federal Reserve Board's Open Market Committee (FOMC) decided not to raise interest rates at its meeting last week. However, the FOMC also made clear that a rate hike was still an option for its June meeting.

Marketers are supposed to be inventive folk – and attempting to interpret their thinking can sometimes invite a descent into the futility of literary criticism.

One key goal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was to lower health care costs by giving consumers more choice over their insurer. Economic theory suggests that when consumers make informed and active choices in a competitive market, companies respond by lowering prices and improving the quality of their offerings.

Recent debates about China have focused on its role in the gradual eastward shift in the global economy. This process was accentuated by the financial crisis of 2007-08 and ensuing recession in the West.

A new study by the Pew Research Center spurred a rash of headlines last week about “the dying middle class.” But the word “dying” might be more appropriate if we were watching the regrettable but inevitable effects of natural forces at work.

“How do we grow the economy?” is an obsolete question. Local initiatives across the world are looking for maturity instead as they rebuild caring, place-based communities and economies.

Many people might think that Donald Trump can only teach the country how to offend women, African Americans and a range of non-European ethnic groups. While that may be his area of expertise, it seems that his rants on dealing with debt may actually provide a teachable moment. As a result, the country, and possibly even the policy elites, may get a better understanding of when and how debt can pose a problem.

Any election demands knowledge, attention and wisdom from the whole electorate. When a campaign season does not seem to be going well, there’s often angst about whether the public has been sufficiently educated.

On Sunday, for a brief, shining moment, renewable power output in Germany reached 90 percent of the country’s total electricity demand.

Losing jobs to technology is nothing new. Since the industrial revolution, roles that were once exclusively performed by humans have been slowly but steadily replaced by some form of automated machinery.

I met Claudio at a Midwestern truck stop just before the Great Recession. At the time, I was a sociology grad student trying to understand how long-haul trucking had gone from one of the best blue-collar jobs in the U.S.

During a Republican debate, Donald Trump declared people are pouring across the southern border. But here’s what Trump ignores: a recent Pew Report shows that more Mexicans are leaving...

I see Greg Mankiw used his NYT column to tell folks that politicians are spinning tales when they say the economy is rigged. I would say that economists spin tales when they tell you it is not. (Mankiw and I just ran through this argument on a panel in Boston last week.) Let's quickly run through the main points.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret about the Internet: Big cable companies hate it. That’s a bad thing because for most Americans big cable companies are the on-ramps to the wired world.

As profits and prices plummet, the oil conglomerates – some of the world’s biggest companies – have been warned they must change their ways or face extinction.

Despite North Dakota’s collapsing oil market, its state-owned bank continues to report record profits. This article looks at what California, with fifty times North Dakota’s population, could do following that state’s lead.

"The socioeconomic profile of a district is a powerful predictor of the average test score performance of students in that district," says Sean Reardon. "Nonetheless, poverty is not destiny: There are districts with similarly low-income student populations where academic performance is higher than others."

"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.

The foreign aid arena in Africa has traditionally been dominated by the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. However, over the past three decades non-traditional donors such as China, have emerged.

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.

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.