Over more than 50 years, the number of newly built single-family homes has trended lower In the 1970s, around 250,000 single-family homes were completed each year. This figure had fallen to less than 150,000 by the time of reunification. Subsequently, there was a strong catch-up in the new states. At the peak in the mid-1990s, nearly 250,000 were again being built each year. However, this was followed by years of…
One of the ongoing discussions about the establishment of a digital euro – a central bank digital currency currently being scoped by the European Central Bank – is about the holding limit. This limit, which would determine the maximum value of digital euros a consumer would be allowed to have, is currently proposed to be between €3000 and €4000. The ECB also proposes to link holdings of digital euros automatically…
Consider that abrasive leaders, or workplace bullies, engage in aggressive behavior mainly because they’ve been allowed to by their own boss, even encouraged to through promotions, accolades and increased pay. Their high value to the organization (e.g., sales, organizational knowledge, professional network) means leadership works around them or ignores their behavior for fear that addressing it may end poorly. That is, leadership is worried the leader will retaliate with even…
The West, led by the US, has been the main global rule-maker for decades. However, the ‘Rest’ have not been satisfied with the global rules made by the West. In order to address how we must develop an alternative world order, we need to understand the shortcomings of the one which currently exists. The main problems with the present international order are not with its values or institutions, but with…
Our free summer learning game, Leaps and Logs, offers a variety of fun and engaging resources to keep students thinking, collaborating, and building skills until the first day of school! While many students in the northern hemisphere are enjoying their summer break, they don’t have to stop learning. Our free summer learning game, Leaps and Logs, offers a variety of fun and engaging resources to keep students thinking, collaborating, and…
When former President Donald Trump slapped sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports in 2019, the economic dynamics between the world’s two biggest economies forever shifted. American businesses hoping President Joe Biden would return to decades-long precedent instead find some tariffs escalating, upending longstanding principles of free trade established when China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Today, multinational firms must adapt, both in terms of trade and doing business within…
What is humanity’s greatest innovation of the industrial age—the steam engine? Penicillin? The internet? These are all good candidates, yet without the productivity gains from another crucial innovation, the modern business company, it’s hard to imagine how these inventions could have improved the world at the same scale. The trouble is that few industrial organizations have truly cracked the productivity code to maintain high performance over the long run. A…
The SAS Advanced Analytics Hub will embed SAS experts and its AI platform capabilities into the University, enabling targeted collaboration with leading researchers and early-stage entrepreneurs.Based on the Cambridge West campus, the Hub will have capacity to recruit and support several high-quality, high-impact academic research projects and promising early-stage startups in the health-tech space, providing their innovative ideas with extra momentum. The partners have already demonstrated the effectiveness of the…
Quick Hits Before an election, employers may want to take several measures to navigate potential workplace tensions, such as establishing clear guidelines that outline when and where political paraphernalia can be worn, the ground rules for appropriate workplace political discussions, the limitations on political speech in the workplace including bumper stickers, and political postings that help to foster a culture of respect. In addition, employers may want to consider conducting…
If a brand owner prevents its authorised resellers from using the internet to make sales, this type of restriction will generally infringe UK or EU competition law. Despite this, competition authorities continue to identify online sales bans, with these types of restriction exposing companies to risks including financial penalties of up to 10% of group worldwide turnover, as well as actions for damages. Under the UK competition law regime, individuals…
23 July 2024By Svetla Daskalova, Federico Maria Ferrara, Pedro Formoso da Silva, Pamina Karl and Thomas Vlassopoulos[1]Repo markets are vital for banks to source liquidity and securities. They also represent an essential link in the monetary policy transmission chain. While the Eurosystem is in the process of reducing its market footprint, repo markets are going through a phase of change. The ECB Blog looks at dynamics in this market.Monetary policy…
On July 24, 2024, the Valdai Discussion Club will hold the 2nd African Conference, titled “Russia – Africa: Strategy for Cooperation in a Multipolar World.” The first African conference was held a year ago in St. Petersburg on the eve of the Russia-Africa summit. Now, for the first time, the Valdai Club Conference will take place on African soil. It will be held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania with the…
Topics Strategy Global Strategy Jon Krause/theispot.com The Philippines isn’t new to foreign investment. Long considered one of the striving tiger cub economies, its bustling ports and big cities have represented attractive investment opportunities for companies like General Electric, KKR, and Cargill.1 However, despite its prime location, young English-speaking workforce, and considerable natural-resource wealth, its performance lags behind that of its Association of Southeast Asian Nations peers.2 For foreign businesses looking…
Seyfarth Synopsis: EEOC Commissioner Keith Sonderling, a Republican who first joined the EEOC in 2020, has announced his departure from the Commission in August 2024. Sonderling’s tenure was marked by his significant contributions to discussions on artificial intelligence in employment, establishing him as a leading authority on the subject. His departure leaves the EEOC with a 3-1 Democratic majority, and so it does not alter the Commission’s current political balance.…
This essay was originally published in Time magazine. President Biden is being celebrated among Democrats for his superb tour of duty and for putting the nation’s interests over his own by stepping out of the campaign. Political pundits, wealthy donors, and prominent fellow political leaders were bewildered as to why President Biden resisted their pressure that he leave the campaign for so long. These critics didn’t realize that their pressure…
SEKO launched in 1976 with one office, in Chicago. The logistics, transportation, forwarding, and warehousing firm now boasts 150 locations in more than 60 countries. It serves as a global end-to-end logistics partner for its customers, aiming to turn supply chain strategy into a competitive advantage.Akhil Nair, based in Hong Kong, is SEKO’s senior vice president for global ocean freight. McKinsey spoke with Nair about ongoing disruptions to supply chain…
Airlines around the world are committing to ambitious decarbonization goals to reach the industry target of net-zero emissions by 2050. Among potential decarbonization measures, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) will make the biggest contributions—up to 50 percent of abatement, depending on the airline. Sustainable fuels, which are already certified for use in today’s jet engines, produce about 80 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than fossil kerosene. The SAF industry is still…
We can assume that the new Iranian president and his pro-reform team will strive to pursue a more balanced foreign policy course; without highlighting any of its directions, it will advance where circumstances allow, without crossing the “red lines” outlined by Iran’s top leadership, Alexander Maryasov writes. The victory of the moderate reformer Masoud Pezeshkian in Iran’s early presidential elections came as a surprise to many, both in the Islamic…
On July 19, the Valdai Club held an expert discussion dedicated to the 2nd Russian-African Conference, titled “Russia – Africa: A strategy for cooperation in a multipolar world,” which will take place on July 24 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Moderator Oleg Barabanov invited participants to discuss how Russian foreign policy with regards to Africa is developing and what tasks it sets for itself.Oleg Ozerov, Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Ministry…
This month’s selection of new research by INSEAD faculty offers some counterintuitive insights, from how misunderstandings can be productive to the possible negative effects of corporate social responsibility under certain conditions. Other studies reveal the significance of understanding the actions and interactions of human actors to achieve ideal outcomes. They include how traders’ strategic response to short selling can harm price efficiency, why the right structures can shift the needle in…
Progressive retinal atrophy (PRA) is a group of inherited diseases that causes progressive degeneration of the light sensitive cells at the back of the eye. Dogs with PRA have normal sight at birth, but by the age of four or five they will be totally blind. There is no treatment.Now a team led by the University of Cambridge has identified the genetic mutation that causes PRA in English Shepherd Dogs,…
Hot off the press, Campbell Tickell Partner, Greg Campbell, interprets the General Election 2024. How did Labour secure nearly two-thirds of the seats at Westminster on over one-third of the votes? How did the Liberal Democrats secure their highest number of seats in over 100 years with a smaller vote percentage than Reform, who secured just five seats? Tactical voting First and foremost, the answer is tactical voting, and highly…
If you fill it up today, the government wants you to plug it in tomorrow. Erin Mansur is dean for faculty and research and the Revers Professor of Business Administration at Tuck. Mansur’s research and teaching focus on energy economics and the nuances of energy transition. To reduce carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, Congress in 2021 and 2022 enacted a host of laws designed to turbocharge the transition…
The United States narrowly escaped yet another government shutdown at the start of this year, which would have been the fourth US government partial shutdown in the last decade. But as the world’s largest economy heaved a huge sigh of relief, the 35-day shutdown from late 2018 into early 2019 – the longest in American history – is still fresh in their memory. The next shutdown would hardly come as a surprise…
Sarah Silverman and her fellow author plaintiffs are fighting a judge’s recent order requiring them to disclose the prompts and outputs they used in preparation for filing their class action lawsuit against ChatGPT owner OpenAI. The judge is giving OpenAI until July 24 to respond to the plaintiffs’ argument that the material should be shielded as work product. The magistrate judge’s ruling is the latest in a series of setbacks…
On July 18, CrowdStrike, an independent cybersecurity company, released a software update that began impacting IT systems globally. Although this was not a Microsoft incident, given it impacts our ecosystem, we want to provide an update on the steps we’ve taken with CrowdStrike and others to remediate and support our customers. Since this event began, we’ve maintained ongoing communication with our customers, CrowdStrike and external developers to collect information and…
About the Program: The first installment of this series will focus on key developments in labor management relations and address the following topics: What unions are prioritizing at the bargaining table and how recent contract settlements impacted industry standards 2023’s wave of high-profile strikes and what they signal for the industry in 2024 and beyond The impact of the Cemex decision on union organizing in these industries, and the practical…
Enhancing Japan’s AI sovereignty and strengthening its research and development capabilities, Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) will integrate thousands of NVIDIA H200 Tensor Core GPUs into its AI Bridging Cloud Infrastructure 3.0 supercomputer (ABCI 3.0). The HPE Cray XD system will feature NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand networking for superior performance and scalability. ABCI 3.0 is the latest iteration of Japan’s large-scale Open AI Computing Infrastructure designed…
It isn’t easy to forecast the next two to three years when macroeconomic conditions and business dynamics are profoundly complex. Yet as technology races ahead—a major (but by no means only) driver of disruption—many companies continue to build models with the same flawed approaches they’ve been using for years. Even when their forecasts do approach the bull’s-eye, critical data points and assumptions are unclear, inconsistent, or missing entirely. The mark…
Quick Hits Federal district courts in Kansas and Texas issued preliminary injunctions blocking enforcement of the U.S. Department of Education’s new Title IX regulations against the states of Alaska, Kansas, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. The courts held that the Department of Education did not have the authority to interpret Title IX’s prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sex to include discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The…
Organizations are grappling with unprecedented workforce challenges, including labor market shortfalls and evolving generational needs. Talent management has become a primary concern for business leaders, with industry experts offering valuable guidance on shaping a future-ready workforce. They examine the impact of technology on operations, the importance of leadership and development opportunities in retaining talent, and innovative approaches to flexibility and career advancement within the manufacturing sector.In this episode of McKinsey…
For anyone involved in the drafting, negotiation and implementation of contracts, it is vitally important that all parties involved are aware of what the words used mean and that the drafting is accurate, clear and not open to differing interpretations between the parties. The importance of this was highlighted in the recent case of Cantor Fitzgerald & Co v Yes Bank Ltd [2024] EWCA Civ 695. The fundamental question brought…
For airlines around the world, fleet maintenance is increasingly challenging. In the United States, for instance, airlines have endured a 15 percent increase in maintenance costs over the past five years. Meanwhile, there’s been a 14 percent increase in the share of flights delayed. This has raised the pressure on already thin margins in a competitive industry. Although maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) organizations endeavor to provide efficient aircraft maintenance…
Russia-Africa relations have become more substantive and regular over the past year, with development strategies, plans, roadmaps and summit meetings, that have become regular despite the challenges and plans for annual Russia-Africa ministerial conferences. The range of the key Russian actors in Africa has changed, the list of Russia’s privileged African partners has been expanded and Russia’s contribution to the sovereignty and development of African countries has become more substantial.…
Almost two centuries ago, Lewis Tappan and John M. Bradstreet illustrated the potential for turning data into a profitable product. At the time, businesses and merchants were expanding their operations and needed a reliable way to determine the creditworthiness of potential partners. Bankers and investors were eager for more consistent, objective information in this burgeoning economy to guide their lending and investment decisions. Tappan and Bradstreet established firms dedicated to…
Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images Companies are under increasing pressure to improve supply chain transparency, particularly around working conditions in remote factories. Government regulations, the best practices of peers, and attention from outside stakeholders all make it increasingly critical that leaders ensure that partners producing goods for the company operate fair, safe, and equitable workplaces. A key tactic in fostering such supply chain transparency is to implement on-the-ground, in-person…
As a reminder, to have access to these features you need a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license! How to prompt like a pro Writing great prompts is the key to having better interactions with Microsoft Copilot in Teams. Just like talking to a co-worker, clear communication and certain techniques can help you get better results from some prompts than others. In this edition, we highlight how to prompt like a…
Starting a new job often brings excitement and high hopes of mingling with colleagues, sharing innovative ideas, and making a positive impact on an organization. Soon, however, a new employee’s excitement may start to wane, if the person notices that questions and suggestions aren’t actually welcome.In fact, new hires often enter fresh roles feeling optimistic and confident their organizations are eager to hear from them, but over time, employees increasingly…
Howie and Harlan are joined by Joshua Sharfstein, a longtime public health official in federal, state, and local government, to discuss the state of the opioid epidemic, lessons from the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, and our readiness for a bird flu outbreak. Harlan reports on the summer surge in COVID-19; Howie remembers his mentor Gail Wilensky, a health economist who directed Medicaid and Medicare programs and led many other organizations over…
They are among 86 distinguished scholars to be elected to the fellowship in recognition of their work in fields ranging from medieval history to international relations.The Cambridge academics made Fellows of the Academy this year are: Professor Elisabeth van Houts (History Faculty; Emmanuel College) Professor Tim Harper (History Faculty; Magdalene College) Professor Rosalind Love (Department of ASNC; Robinson College) Professor James Montgomery (FAMES; Trinity Hall) Professor Ayşe Zarakol (POLIS; Emmanuel…