news 2020

The application of network theory in financial audits Recent accounting scandals, for example the Enron (2001) scandal, Petrobras (2014) scandal and the Wirecard (2019) scandal, emphasize the consequences of untrustworthy financial information. Yet, new data driven audit methods are scarce and not yet widely applied in this industry.

The UK Government's hesitancy to bring in tougher Covid restrictions exacerbated investor herding, market volatility and greater harm to its economy compared to countries with swifter and more decisive pandemic responses, new research indicates. Countries with more stringent government responses to the coronavirus crisis benefitted from lower levels of investor herding, newly published research from the University of Sussex Business School , Southampton Business School and University of Brescia (Italy) reveals.

Most people underestimate exponential growth, including when it comes to the spread of the coronavirus. The ability to grasp the magnitude of exponential growth depends on the way in which it is communicated. Using the right framing helps to understand the benefit of mitigation measures. The coronavirus outbreak offered the public a crash course in statistics, with terms like doubling time, logarithmic scales, R factor, rolling averages, and excess mortality now on everyone's tongue.

California's 2018 wildfires cost the US economy $148.5bn (£110bn) (0.7% of the country's annual GDP), of which $45.9bn was lost outside the state, according to researchers from universities including UCL. More than 8,500 separate fires burned during 2018 in California, making them the deadliest and most destructive of any year in the state's history.

Findings suggest economically vulnerable households need to leave the house more to work As case rates of COVID-19 reach new heights across the nation, many states and cities are tightening stay-at-home restrictions to stop the spread. New research suggests that that those suffering from economic hardships are less likely comply with new stay-at-home orders; however, these same U.S. residents would be more likely to adhere to the new public health guidelines if their households received stimulus funds.

Alcohol marketing generally leads to higher alcohol consumption, also among minors. This is shown by a study by the University of Amsterdam in collaboration with the University of Twente, prompted by the Dutch National Prevention Agreement. The research systematically charted the effects of alcohol marketing.

According to the strategy, each group of who intend to shop at a supermarket, for example, would be divided into two subgroups and allowed to shop either in the morning or afternoon. Anna Shvets/Pexels According to the strategy, each group of who intend to shop at a supermarket, for example, would be divided into two subgroups and allowed to shop either in the morning or afternoon.

Berkeley Lab study finds certain policies and business models can lead to more equitable distribution of solar installations As rooftop solar prices have fallen, many households at all income levels can now save money by going solar. Nonetheless, lowand moderate-income households remain less likely to adopt solar than high-income households.

Testing for COVID-19 antibodies can provide important information for communities battling an outbreak. These tests can inform epidemiologists whether someone has had an infection, even if they were asymptomatic. Yet for testing to provide a good understanding, take-up needs to be broad and independent of income, political orientation, or ethnicity.

Most voters are looking forward to an Election Day victory. According to a recent survey of U.S. households, 87% of Democrats expect Joe Biden to win the presidency while 84% of Republicans expect Donald Trump to stay in the White House, with both sides having a high degree of confidence in their predictions.

Discrimination fluctuates, but social cohesion improves More than four-in-five Asian-Australians say they have experienced instances of discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic, new analysis from The Australian National University (ANU) shows. In a survey of more than 3,000 people, 84.5 per cent of Asian-Australians reported at least one instance of discrimination between January and October 2020.

Despite decades of progress in addressing gender discrimination, women across the globe face persistent legal barriers to participating in the economy on an equal basis with men,  according to a study  co-authored by Yale economist Pinelopi Goldberg. The study, based on the World Bank Group's newly compiled "Women, Business and the Law"(WBL) database, provides the first global picture of how discriminatory laws continue to restrict women's economic opportunities.

COVID-19 is having a massive impact on household finances, with personal debts increasing. But some people are seeing their savings rise as their incomes remain unaffected and their spending has been curtailed - says a new financial inclusion monitor from the University of Birmingham and the University of Lincoln.

What makes a photo perfect? This usually was a question of experience and gut feeling for marketers, until recently. PhD candidate Gijs Overgoor went looking for the answer with the help of machine learning, focusing among other things on the visual complexity of images on Instagram. Overgoor divides his time between the Netherlands, where he is conducting research for his PhD at UvA's Amsterdam Business School, and in the United States.

Analysis of Federal Reserve survey data shows U.S. wealth inequality has declined for the first time in nearly 30 years, while income inequality has seen its largest decline in three decades, according to a new working paper from Rice's Baker Institute for Public Policy. The results come from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), a triennial family survey conducted by the Federal Reserve.

Wang defended his PhD thesis, which was completed under the supervision of Prof. Marc Salomon, in June of last year. After 4 years in Amsterdam, he moved to China, where he is now assistant professor of Innovation and Information Management at the University of Hong Kong. Marketing, he states, has in some respects progressed further than other disciplines when it comes to the deployment of machine learning (ML).

As government officials across the nation wrestle with choices over shutdown policies in a pandemic that has hit some places harder than others, a new study sheds light on how much of a difference stay-at-home orders make on lives saved and infections. The study, by Stanford economist Matthew Gentzkow and his colleagues, finds that social distancing behaviors clearly matter in terms of reducing mortality and infection rates, but that most social distancing in the early pandemic was independent of whether or not areas had lockdown mandates in place.

The first large-scale study of the risks that countries face from dependence on water, energy and land resources has found that globalisation may be decreasing, rather than increasing, the security of global supply chains. By quantifying the pressures that our consumption places on water, energy and land resources in far-off corners of the world, we can also determine how much risk is built into our interconnected world Oliver Taherzadeh Countries meet their needs for goods and services through domestic production and international trade.

The revenue model that has sustained the newspaper industry for centuries no longer works in the digital age, but another age-old concept with some modern adaptations could be the answer to profitability, says a University of Michigan researcher. As newspaper and other similar content has gone digital over recent years, publishers have tried several funding models to strike the right balance between advertising, subscriptions and, in some cases, free content to lure readers.

Foreign investment into the UK is now predicted to fall by 37% post-Brexit, a 50% increase over previous estimates, as a result of leaving the EU single market and customs union, finds a new study by UCL and LSE economists. The peer-reviewed study, which is forthcoming in the Journal of Common Market Studies, highlights that the single market, since its implementation in 1992, has been the 'cornerstone' for additional foreign direct investment (FDI).