The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced that inflation increased 0.8 percent in February on a seasonally adjusted basis after rising 0.6 percent in January. For the 12-month period ending in February, the annualized inflation rate was 7.9 percent, the largest 12-month increase since 1982. A key driver of U.S. inflation has been surging […]
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No matter how long the military conflict continues, the growing atrocities committed by the Russian Federation against Ukraine will likely result in the United States and its allies sustaining economic sanctions against Russia for a prolonged period of time. This blog will take a quick look at international trade between Wisconsin and Russia. Although overall […]
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University of Chicago professor of economics, Walmart chief economist and UW-Stevens Point Distinguished Alumnus John List ’92 returned to campus March 3-4 to speak about his experiences of scaling great ideas and shared stories from the White House and Chicago Heights schools to Uber and Lift. [View Photos] List presented “The Voltage Effect: How to […]
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As the military tensions heat up between Russia and the Ukraine and the political tensions increase between the United States and Russia, this blog provides a brief summary of Russia’s energy importance. Russia is a major player in global energy and is particularly important for Europe and China. Table 1 below shows the 10 largest […]
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Inflation has been a relatively hot topic of discussion with the annualized inflation rate hitting 7.5% in January, the highest rate since the early 1980s. Inflationary pressures resulted from a combination of increased demand as the economy rebounded from COVID, and reduced supply because of COVID related supply chain issues. This blog will look at […]
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The stock market has been up, down, and all around in January. For the week ending Jan. 21, 2022, the S&P 500, a benchmark for large company stocks (a large-cap index), fell 5.7% and the NASDAQ, a technology heavy stock index, declined 7.6%. That was the worst week for the market since the first quarter […]
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Interesting Times Recent times have been both interesting and challenging with the spread of the Delta variant interrupting a return to normalcy that we were all looking forward to. Now, the emergence of the Omicron variant promises to keep things interesting as we head into the holiday season and the new year. Speaking of interesting […]
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by Bo DeDeker, Ed.D.Assistant Professor of Accounting “Corporate social responsibility is not just about managing, reducing, and avoiding risk, it is about creating opportunities, generating improved performance, making money, and leaving the risks far behind.” –Sunil Misser, Head of Global Sustainability Practice, PwC Introduction Corporate sustainable responsibility (CSR) programs, combined with the advent of social […]
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Inflation Overview There are two broad factors that affect prices – supply and demand. Generally, inflation is caused when there is a change to one of these factors. If the supply of goods is reduced for a given demand, prices (inflation) will increase until a higher price level is reached that balances the demand to […]
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The Labor Market Overview A collage of factors influenced the labor market in 2021, with some of those factors likely to continue impacting the labor market in 2022. The economic rebound of 2021 prompted a flurry of job openings; however, those job openings were not always filled, and talk of a “labor shortage” resulted. First, […]
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