Personal data protection is sometimes presented as a legal headache, typically in the online business world. For others, usually in the activist sphere, it is seen as a way to defend our fundamental rights. Each side tends to mock the other’s point of view. Here, let us try another lens. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) could be seen as …
Read More »Economics and Society
Delivery riders seeking social protection
Cynthia Srnec, Sciences Po and Cédric Gossart, Institut Mines-Télécom Business School “In the ideal world of the delivery platforms, we would say nothing, just smile politely, “Hello, sir”, “Goodbye”, get on our bikes, make our deliveries, never fall, never have an accident, never make a complaint […]. We used to pay you €5, now it’s €2.60, what are you going …
Read More »Caring for the population or one’s earnings? A dilemma for marketers in the pharmaceutical industry
Loréa Baïada-Hirèche, Institut Mines-Télécom Business School ; Anne Sachet-Milliat, ISC Paris Business School et Bénédicte Bourcier-Béquaert, ESSCA École de Management The pharmaceutical industry is rocked by scandals on a regular basis. Oxycodon, for example, has been massively distributed in the United States despite being a highly addictive opioid analgesic, and has been implicated in some 200,000 deaths by overdose in …
Read More »Waste management: decentralizing for better management
Reducing the environmental impact of waste and encouraging its reuse calls for a new approach to its management. This requires the modeling of circuits on a territorial scale, and the improvement of collaboration between public and private actors. Territorial waste management is one of the fundamental aspects of the circular economy. Audrey Tanguy,1 a researcher at Mines Saint-Étienne, is devoting …
Read More »Economics – dive in, there is so much to discover!
To effectively roll out circular economy policies within a territory, companies and decision-makers require access to evaluation and simulation tools. The design of these tools, still in the research phase, necessarily requires a more detailed consideration of the impact of human activities, both locally and globally. “The circular economy enables optimization of the available resources in order to preserve them …
Read More »Hospitals put to the test by shocks
Benoît Demil, I-site Université Lille Nord Europe (ULNE) and Geoffrey Leuridan, IMT Atlantique – Institut Mines-Télécom The Covid-19 crisis has put lasting strain on the health care system, in France and around the world. Hospital staff have had to deal with increasing numbers of patients, often in challenging conditions in terms of equipment and space: a shortage of masks and …
Read More »A real way to look at fake news
The SARS-CoV2 virus is not the only thing that has spread during the Covid-19 pandemic: fake news has also made its way around the world. Although it existed even before, the unprecedented crisis has paved the way for an explosion of fake news. Anuragini Shirish, a researcher at Institut Mines Télécom Business School, explains the factors at play in this trend and …
Read More »Bitcoin crash: cybercrime and over-consumption of electricity, the hidden face of cryptocurrency
Donia Trabelsi, Institut Mines-Télécom Business School ; Michel Berne, Institut Mines-Télécom Business School et Sondes Mbarek, Institut Mines-Télécom Business School Wednesday 19 May will be remembered as the day of a major cryptocurrency crash: -20% for dogecoin, -19% for ethereum, -22% for definity, the supposedly-infinite blockchain that was recently launched with a bang. The best-known of these currencies, bitcoin, limited the …
Read More »Digital Service Act: Regulating the content of digital platforms, Act 1
The Digital Service Act, proposed by the European Commission in early 2020, seeks to implement a new regulatory framework for digital platforms. Grazia Cecere, an economics researcher at Institut Mines-Télécom Business School, explains various aspects of these regulations. Why has it become necessary to regulate the content of platforms? Grazia Cecere: Technological developments have changed the role of the internet and platforms. Previous …
Read More »Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima: the role of accidents in nuclear governance
Stéphanie Tillement, IMT Atlantique – Institut Mines-Télécom and Olivier Borraz, Sciences Po Until the 1970s, nuclear power plants were considered to be inherently safe, by design. Accidents were perceived as being highly unlikely, if not impossible, by designers and operators, in spite of recurring incidents that were not publicized. This changed abruptly in 1979 with the Three Mile Island (TMI) accident in the United …
Read More »