The Conversation

Here's how workers would spend the corporate tax cut – if they had a voice

Written by Thomas Kochan, Professor of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

Having a bullhorn is nice, but workers need more to elevate their voices.AP Photo/David Goldman)

Over 200 CEOs have said they will raise wages or give bonuses as a result of the large corporate income tax cut passed late last year by Congress.

Some view their plans as simply a public relations move, others as a response to tighter labor markets or...

Promising male birth control pill has its origin in an arrow poison

Written by Gunda Georg, Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Director of the Institute for Therapeutics Discovery and Development, University of Minnesota

Will blue packets replace pink ones soon?Aleksandra Berzhets/Shutterstock.com

After decades of research, development of a male birth control may now be one step closer. My colleagues and I are working on a promising lead for a male birth control pill based on ouabain – a plant extract that African warriors and hunters traditionally used as a...

Why ignoring mental health needs of young Syrian refugees could harm us all

Written by M. Zaher Sahloul, Associate Clinical Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago

A Syrian child drew a picture of helicopters dropping bombs and children dying as a result. The surviving children are crying, while the deceased ones have smiles on their faces. Zaher Sahloud, CC BY-SA

When a seven-year-old student in eastern Aleppo was asked at the peak of the bombardment campaign by the Assad regime in 2015 to draw a picture, he...

Why it's too soon for Davos billionaires to toast Trump's 'pro-business' policies

Written by Charles Hankla, Associate Professor of Political Science, Georgia State University

SAP CEO Bill McDermott and Siemens chief Joe Kaeser flank Trump as they praise him for his tax cut.AP Photo/Evan Vucci

The moguls of global business, who met recently in Davos for the World Economic Forum, may not like Donald Trump’s style. But, if a series of reports by The New York Times and other outlets are to be believed, Trump’s...

Presidential corruption verdict shows just how flawed Brazil's justice system is

Written by Rubens Glezer, Law Professor, Fundação Getúlio Vargas

On Jan. 24, a Brazilian appeals court upheld a criminal conviction against former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, rocking Brazil’s already turbulent political scene. The verdict, which confirms a 2017 ruling against the wildly popular Workers’ Party leader on corruption charges, could carry a prison sentence of up to 10...

Trump's travel ban is just one of many US policies that legalize discrimination against Muslims

Written by Basima Sisemore, Researcher, Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, University of California, Berkeley

At the funeral of Nabra Hassanen, a Muslim girl who was beaten to death.AP Photo/Steve Helber

On Jan. 19, a year after President Donald Trump’s first travel ban was issued, the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments against the latest third version signed by Trump on Sept. 24, 2017. This version remains in full effect.

Under the ban, nationals...

Millions of refugees could benefit from big data – but we're not using it

Written by Anirudh V. S. Ruhil, Professor of Leadership & Public Affairs, Ohio University

Hindu women, who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, wait for their turn to collect aid at refugee camp in September 2017.AP Photo/Dar Yasin

Today, 65 million people live as refugees or are displaced within their home countries – more than at any other point since the U.N. Refugee Agency began collecting data. Many countries have...

What happened at Davos? 8 essential reads

Written by Bryan Keogh, Economics + Business Editor

Marine One arrives in the Alps. AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Editor’s note: This is a roundup of material from The Conversation’s coverage of the 2018 World Economic Forum.

The annual gathering of global elites known colloquially as Davos is over – in case you missed it. So what does it matter?

While the rare attendance of the president of...

How should we decide what to do?

Written by Lori Gruen, William Griffin Professor of Philosophy, Wesleyan University

How many times do we wonder, 'what's the right thing to do'?Ed Yourdon from New York City, USA (Helping the homeless Uploaded by Gary Dee, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Most of us are faced with ethical decisions on a regular basis. Some are relatively minor – perhaps your cousin makes a new recipe and it really doesn’t taste good,...

Why don't STEM majors vote as much as others?

Written by Inger Bergom, Senior Researcher, Institute for Democracy and Higher Education at Tisch College of Civic Life, Tufts University

college voters

There’s no shortage of talk about the need to get more students to go into STEM majors. But a growing body of research, including our own at the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education at Tufts University, indicates there might also be a need to get more STEM majors to go to the polls.

An analysis that we conducted shows...