In 2016, Microsoft unveiled its first AI chatbot, Tay, developed to interact and converse with users in real-time on Twitter and engage Millennials. Tay was released with a basic grasp of language based on a dataset of anonymised public data and some pre-written material, with the intention to subsequently learn from interactions with users.
On March 23, Tay took its […]
Workplaces are constantly evolving in the modern-day world. As such, business leaders must be readily adaptable in responding to new situations and problems as they occur. This continual advancement can cause a shift in the focus of an organisation’s business goals. Two areas that have seen recent prolonged interest within organisations are: innovation, and diversity and inclusion (D&I).
Innovation has […]
Leading academics in economics, management, and behavioural science, and leaders in major London businesses took part in a roundtable discussion in which they shared insights and ideas on how businesses can meet and adapt to the profound challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. The event, hosted jointly by LSE and the Confederation of Business Industry (CBI), took place on […]
The rise of China to the status of economic superpower has been the dominant narrative of the last three decades. China’s rise as the main feature of globalisation, in conjunction with a beneficial sweet spot in demography, drove output up and inflation down in the advanced economies. But these trends are now reversing. China’s economic success depended on many […]
It has become increasingly salient that publicly funded health care providers such as hospital are sensitive to incentives. There is increasing evidence that competition between health care providers produces efficiency and quality improvements (Gaynor and Propper, 2010), even when in some countries it has not produced the expected outcomes (Gobillon and Milcent, 2017). However, when health care providers compete […]
One of the most dramatic changes in the world economy over the past half century has been the emergence of China as a major force in world trade. A central question in international economics is the implications of such economic growth for the income and welfare of trade partners. A related question in political economy is the extent to […]
Economists associate the mass distress of firms during recessions with Joseph Schumpeter’s creative destruction theory, which says that during downturns small, less efficient, younger firms are the ones to exit the market. Their exit allows for more efficient firms to expand, lifting overall productivity. In a global pandemic like COVID, however, this theory may be on less certain grounds, […]
Durante las últimas décadas se ha evidenciado un aumento sin precedentes en el número de organizaciones que apoyan el crecimiento de emprendimientos innovadores. Estas aceleradoras de negocios buscan identificar y apoyar a emprendimientos con potencial trasformador que puedan escalar rápidamente y convertirse en líderes de su sector a nivel nacional o internacional.
Aunque se sabe de la importancia de esta […]
The last few decades have seen an unprecedented increase in the number of organisations supporting innovative ventures. These business accelerators seek to identify and boost high-potential startups that can rapidly scale up to become national or global leaders.
Although the importance of high-potential startups—also known as “gazelles”—for economic development is well-known, the evidence regarding the impacts that support organisations have […]
What is the essential task of management? To look after the short term in ways that not only protect, but even enhance medium and long-term prospects. For businesses, the COVID-19 crisis presents massive challenges to fulfilling this quest; it is difficult to pull off even in periods of growth. Previous downturns demonstrated how problematic it is to ride out, […]
The current pandemic has shed light on the inequalities encountered by women and racial minorities and raised serious questions about the impact of working from home on organisational diversity. However, not all may be negative. If teleworking is likely to become more widespread in the post-pandemic world, then a world where working from home is commonplace might, under certain […]
You have almost certainly heard of monopoly, but less likely to have heard of monopsony. The literal definition of monopoly is a situation where there is only one seller of a product; though the term is used more loosely to refer to the case where there are a few sellers and not much competition between them. They have what […]
Trade is central to development in Africa. A long history of economic thought, theory and practice underpins this proposition. However, I do not seek to interrogate the foundational principles of international trade, but rather to highlight issues that underscore the key role of trade as a driver of growth, sustainable development and poverty reduction. This is not automatic. It […]
The Covid-19 pandemic has already proven to be a worse negative shock to the economy than most of us anticipated when lockdown commenced.
The chancellor’s furlough scheme and summer package of support for jobs were well-timed and have saved many jobs. But these packages do not amount to a macroeconomic response and have not stopped unemployment rising rapidly. A sharp […]
Management matters for explaining differentials in productivity between and within countries and sectors. Across countries, management practices – as measured in the World Management Survey (WMS) – explain on average around 30% of the gap in total factor productivity with the United States (Bloom et al, 2016); and experimental evidence from Indian textile plants supports a causal interpretation (Bloom […]
While our galaxy is full of planets that could harbour life, there is no evidence that any of them besides our own actually do. This observation suggests that the universe is a dangerous place and that we may be facing civilisational risks that could, in a worst case outcome, result in extinction. Sustainability policy (broadly conceived) deals with these […]
With the government repeatedly claiming that it is being guided by science, questions about the range of academic disciplines represented on the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) have begun to emerge alongside reports that the government is seeking to broaden the range of academic fields represented. A shadow version of SAGE has also been created with different experts and a different approach to the […]
As governments wrestle with the economic and public health challenge of COVID, attention is turning to the part business should play in the recovery and aftermath. Will companies funnel government bailouts and wage subsidies into dividends and bonuses? Or repay the debt by committing to their workers and communities and investing more in developing the products and services of […]
To quote Singapore’s senior minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam from his national address last month, “the future begins now”. That future will be dramatically different not only for governments and individuals but also for big business and big finance. A silver lining to the devastation of COVID-19 could be the onset of a new era for both stakeholder capitalism and sustainable investing.
The future […]
With Boris Johnson’s launch of his “New Deal” and Michael Gove’s speech on “the privilege of public service”, the government has made clear its intention to press ahead with the domestic agenda of “levelling-up” and reform of government on which it was elected. There was little surprise in either announcement, with all of the elements to be found previously […]
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