The post-pandemic surge in global sales of luxury handbags, shoes and apparel is set to stall this year amid a creativity crisis and price hikes as brands shift focus to the biggest spending customers, a new study by the Bain consultancy said Tuesday. Bain is forecasting flat worldwide luxury sales in 2024 following a slight...
Commerce
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Hybrid Work Is a “Win-Win-Win” for Companies, Workers
It is one of the most hotly debated topics in today’s workplace: Is allowing employees to log in from home a few days a week good for their productivity, careers, and job satisfaction? Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford economist and one of the foremost researchers on work-from-home policies, has uncovered compelling evidence that hybrid schedules are...
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Benefits of Failure Are Overrated
The platitude that failure leads to success may be both inaccurate and damaging to society, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. Researchers conducted 11 experiments with more than 1,800 participants across many domains and compared national statistics to the participants’ responses. In one experiment, participants vastly overestimated the percentage of prospective nurses,...
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How Much Do You Need to Know About How Your Spouse Spends Money? Maybe Less Than You Think
Love is in the air, and wedding season is upon us. Like many elder millennials, I grew up watching sitcoms in the 1980s and ‘90s. Whenever those series needed a ratings boost, they would feature a wedding. Those special episodes taught me that weddings usually involve young lovebirds: think Elvin and Sondra from “The Cosby...
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American Slavery Wasn’t Just a White Man’s Business − New Research Shows How White Women Profited, Too
As the United States continues to confront the realities and legacy of slavery, Americans continue to challenge myths about the country’s history. One enduring myth is that slavery was a largely male endeavor — that, for the most part, the buying, selling, trading and profiting from enslavement were carried out by white men alone. While...
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Basic Income Can Double Global GDP While Reducing Carbon Emissions
Giving a regular cash payment to the entire world population has the potential to increase global gross domestic product (GDP) by 130%, according to a new analysis published June 7 in the journal Cell Reports Sustainability. Researchers suggest that charging carbon emitters with an emission tax could help fund such basic income program while reducing environmental...
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How Midwestern States Are Courting Taiwanese Investment
Despite Illinois’s trade ties with Taiwan, other Midwest states have taken steps that Illinois hasn’t to deepen their government’s relationship with Taipei. The Midwest lies thousands of miles from the Taiwan Strait, but it’s still buffeted by turbulent cross-strait relations. Illinois and its neighbors have always had to weigh the concerns of both Taiwan and...
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Musk’s X Is Allowing Users to Post Consensual Adult Content, Formalizing a Prior Twitter Policy
The social media platform X says it will now formally allow people to show consensual adult content, as long as it is clearly labeled as such. The move makes official a policy already in place when the platform was known as Twitter, before billionaire Elon Musk purchased it in 2022. In a recent update on its website,...
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Marketers Can Manage ‘Feature Creep’
Wifi-enabled washing machines. Voice-controlled microwaves. App-enabled TVs, vacuum cleaners, and even window blinds you can control from the comfort of your couch. Many of the technological features now included in everyday products are useful and accessible. But research has shown that having too many can overwhelm potential buyers, making them less likely to make a purchase. In...
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New Study Shows Unique Findings on SPAC-IPO Filings
Is honesty the best policy? New research from Derek Harmon, assistant professor of strategy, shows that when filing a special purpose acquisition company initial public offering, or SPAC-IPO, being honest about uncertainty may be key to funding success. Three Key Takeaways SPAC-IPO filings are more successful in financing when they openly communicate the uncertainty associated with...
