What if we promoted policies to shrink our economy, rather than grow it? What if government officials called for a recession, perhaps a depression, as the answer to humanity’s most intractable challenges? As heretical as they sound, such questions frame very real policy proposals debated by a growing legion of economists, activists, and government officials representing the so-called Degrowth movement. Degrowthists argue that only a contraction of the world’s developed economies can help reduce dependence on fossil fuel and other environmental resources, slow climate change, and ... Read More
Being Frugal May Be More Genetic Than Learned
May 23, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Shopping at garage sales, collecting soap slivers and other dollar-stretching habits — often derided as neurotic obsessions of the frugal mind — can now be blamed on the thrifty ways of a long-forgotten ancestor. Genetics, researchers say, has a far greater effect on consumer behavior than once thought. In a study of identical twins, which was published in the April edition of Journal of Consumer Research, marketing professors Itamar Simonson of Stanford University and Aner Sela of the University of Florida report that individual consumer preferences — for such products as chocolate, ... Read More
Love Thy Neighbor? Not If He’s Different
May 4, 2010 • By • 25 Comments
Universal brotherhood and tolerance toward others remains common fare at Sunday church sermons everywhere, but does the message have any impact? Apparently not. In a new study drawing on nearly a half century of data, a team of researchers report that religious adherents in the United States — especially fundamentalist Christians — are more inclined than agnostics to harbor racist attitudes toward blacks and other minorities. This "religion-racism paradox," as University of Southern California social psychologist Wendy Wood explains it, is deeply embedded in organized religion which, by ... Read More
Picking Stocks? Count the Butts in Pews
March 7, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Looking to invest your IRA in companies that take few risks while promising steady, if slow, growth? Just count the churches around company headquarters. That’s the conclusion of two accounting professors in Hong Kong whose recent study reveals that publicly traded companies in the U.S. are less likely to take financial risks — but more likely to grow, albeit slowly — when churchgoing and other measures of religiosity are high within the community where top management is based. Warren Buffett made headlines in late February commenting on how public companies should manage risk, ... Read More