Skin lightening is an age-old practice dating back to the end of the Middle Ages in Europe. It spread from Asia to the American continent. According to the WHO, 40% of African women currently engage in this practice. But using chemical substances in an attempt to whiten the skin can cause irreversible damage. This article examines this fantasy that is as timeworn as it is hazardous to health.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, citizens of the land of Louis Pasteur, the father of immunization, showed a marked unwillingness to be vaccinated. Rather than being limited to France, might this distrust be the symptom of an ailment affecting high-income countries?
Populism is a complex ideology that first appeared in Russia in the late 19th century. At the time, it was a movement started within the progressist, democratic and demophilic intelligentsia, which advocated genuine concern for the populace with the aim of helping and educating them, but also of maintaining contact between the social elite and the common people. Since then, the nature of populism has changed and there is a strong possibility that the political actions of its representatives, carried out on behalf of the people, are now turning against the latter and risk pushing them further into poverty.
In this forth Interview of the ThinkForward Conferences cycle SKEMA Business School is pleased to welcome Professor Gerd Gigerenzer to discuss about decision making under uncertainty.
Often a hostage to ideological bias, the ties between religion and economic development are a sensitive issue. In adopting a consilience approach, we can cool the debate by demonstrating the complexity of the links, and the sometimes unexpected effects of religion in the socio-economic sphere.
Contestability is a term often used by economists to mean that a market is competitive simply because players can enter and leave freely. This concept has been used to justify deregulation policies implemented to reduce legal barriers in various sectors such as air transport and ride-hailing services.
Freakonomics is a word for an original way to view the world, by uncovering the influence of economic prompts and cognitive biases in particular on our choices. This type of research purports to reveal unconscious or unexpected factors that are confirmed by scientific studies, and this makes it even more intriguing. But as the astronomer Carl Sagan highlighted, the problem is that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. And such evidence does not always exist, as we will see.
What is Modern Slavery?
What has it got to do with business?
What is being done about it in business and management education and research?
Global warming is an established reality whose effects, which are now tangible for everyone, are potentially harmful for the planet. Yet, it can also bring with it unexpected opportunities...
In this Third Interview of the ThinkForward Conferences cycle, Sergei Guriev discusses key insights from his most recent research about Autocracy and Autocrats. Sergei Guriev is the Scientific Director of Sciences Po's Master's and PhD programmes in economics. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and member of the Executive Committee of the International Economic Association.
In this Second Interview of the ThinkForward Conferences cycle organised by Professors Rodolphe Desbordes and Frédéric Munier,
Richard Davies discusses key insight from his recently published book Extreme Economies
Recently, young environmental activist Greta Thunberg’s visit to France’s National Assembly caused quite a stir. Critics were quick to point out her young age and her lack of scientific credentials. Yet if there is one thing that her detractors cannot deny, it is that her speech has had spectacular and unexpected effects.
First Interview of the ThinkForward Conferences cycle organized by Professors Rodolphe Desbordes and Frédéric Munnier.
Stéphanie Chasserio Interviews Zahra Hankir. She is the award-winning, best-selling editor of Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World.
Zahra writes about the intersection of politics, culture, and society in the Middle East. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Vice, BBC News, Al Jazeera English, Businessweek, Roads & Kingdoms, and Literary Hub, among other publications.
In the field of social psychology, cognitive dissonance is the tension experienced by an individual when their thought system, feelings or behaviour are conflicting. In its own way, slavery placed our societies in a state of cognitive dissonance: the proclamation of human rights coexisted with the reduction of people to the status of objects deprived of rights. To this day, this reality is often overlooked.
Illegal drug trade, arms and human trafficking, counterfeiting... “Grey globalisation” players have spawned transnational organised crime (TOC) that is difficult to stamp out. Indeed, it is complex on account of its production bases, networks, funding and demand. An analysis of drug trafficking through the lens of consilience provides a better understanding of this issue and its challenges.
Over the course of the 20th century, a spectacular decline in religious practice occurred within Western societies. Numerous studies now indicate that this trend is escalating. A multifactorial analysis provides a better understanding of what is driving this (r)evolution...
