Technology & Innovation

The net neutrality framework laid out by Google and Verizon exempts wireless networks from rules that would govern broadband service and allows providers to set up Internet ‘toll lanes’.

Anyone who has watched a cable news channel for long enough recognizes the problem: after 20 or 30 minutes the news gets repetitive as stories are recycled for new viewers […]

“In other advanced economies, higher personal savings and greater reliance on export earnings created expectations of more rapid economic recovery,” Judge Richard Posner explains.

Patents are relatively weak incentives for innovation, especially when it comes to software and Internet startups, yet they may be usual in securing funding from venture capitalists.

“Mr. Greenspan is calling for the complete repeal of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, brushing aside Republicans and Democrats who say the economic recovery would be threatened.”

“That the Great Recession could bring hope for a major recalibration—a resetting of all the clocks—is not surprising. Unfortunately, though, it’s not happening in any meaningful way.”

“Government is certainly growing in the U.S., but that hardly makes us a social democracy.” William Galston of the Brookings Institution distinguishes between social insurance and social democracy.

“Odd as it may seem, the first generation that cannot imagine life without the Internet doesn’t actually consider the medium particularly important, and indeed shuns some of the latest web technologies.”

“The FCC has halted discussions amid reports spread that Google and Verizon will propose their own, less regulatory framework for Net neutrality.” The L.A. Times says the FCC must act now.

There is much more to the stock-market than meets the eye: highly complex and sometimes secretive trading methods, known as “dark pools”, manipulate the market in power’s favor.

When evidence for a conspiracy theory falls short, an opportune moment to study cognitive dissonance arises as followers easily find ‘proof’ for an alternative explanation.

Today we introduce our newest blog, Dollars and Sex, written by Marina Adshade, an economics professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  There she teaches a popular undergraduate course […]

While the large banks have survived in one form or another, a spate of small- and medium-size banks are closing across the country at a rate of four to six […]

How much is being American worth to you? Or British, Japanese, or German? The value of one’s nationality is largely intangible, but Nobel laureate Gary Becker tells Big Think that […]

PepsiCo Social Media director Bonin Bough thinks that CEOs who are comfortable on Twitter and Facebook can really help their companies out. “You look at a guy like Tony [Hsieh] […]

Economists find dating websites extremely useful, not to find the love of their lives because they provide an opportunity to observe a fascinating market in action: the market for marriage.

In a recent interview in the New York Times Magazine, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner said that he was very proud that he had paved the way for middle-class couples to […]

Ahead of what is expected to be a boom in e-book sales, Amazon and Apple are accused of colluding to fix the price of electronic books depriving the market of competition.

In countries that regulate prostitution, more sex trade workers end up on the street and disease rates rise. 

“The idea of a semantic web was proposed over a decade ago. Now a triumvirate of internet heavyweights—Google, Twitter and Facebook—are making it real,” says the New Scientist.

David Heinemeier Hansson was bored until the day he met Ruby, and then his life changed forever. No, this isn’t a love story—not a conventional one anyway—it’s a story of […]

“You don’t have to be a conservative to think it a bad idea to promote unionism in an economy struggling to climb out of a deep economic hole,” says Judge Richard Posner. “You can be a Keynesian.”

The Chinese economic model is not sustainable in the long run and the global community must do all it can to help China rise again. Kevin Gallagher at The Guardian says China is too big to fail.

“Central banks make outsize profits when they print high-denomination notes, like €500 bills, which criminals prefer.” The CSM on how black markets and currency markets benefit each other.

“When it comes to Islamic Finance, the Islamic legal scholar Frank Vogel says Americans have nothing to worry about.” He discusses the rise of Islamic banking with The American Prospect.

The value of stocks has little to do with whether the U.S. economy or any economy is ailing, says Zachary Karabell at The Atlantic. Yet nearly everyone believes they are closely connected.

The recession has not deterred a new generation of corporate CEOs who increasingly see adopting sustainable technology as necessary to future profits. This according to a new report.

“I love a good deal, but as consumer prices keep hitting rock bottom, this is just getting scary.” A Salon staffer says our culture of cheap is morally dubious and corrodes standards.

“New forms of communication have exposed the fact that the voice call is badly designed. It deserves to die.” An author at Wired says lighter forms of communication are superior.

“The fears about online wagering are demonstrably bogus,” says Steve Chapman at The Chicago Tribune, who was pleasantly surprised when a House committee approved online gambling.