News & Commentary

September 7, 2016

Emily Miller

Emily Miller is a student at Harvard Law School.

How do Uber drivers decide when to stop driving for the day?  According to Uber’s internal research, many drivers actually work fewer hours at the busiest times when driving is most profitable, suggesting that these drivers have an income goal in mind and stop working at times that driving is most profitable, reports the New York Times.  Although the behavior is somewhat in tension with conventional economics, some suggest that this behavior is only common for those who are just beginning their careers with Uber, while others suggest that many drivers do have income targets but treat them fairly flexibly.

Politico reported that neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump are doing particularly well winning over union votes.  Although the country’s largest labor unions have endorsed Clinton, she is polling at a mere 50% among union households, compared with the usual 60% the Democratic candidate has received over the past 20 years.  Trump, meanwhile, is in line with his Republican predecessors at around 40%, despite his strong opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership.

Meanwhile, a new study on voting preferences reveals that employees tend to follow their employer’s CEO in campaign contributions and electoral decisions, reports the New York Times.  This pattern holds true even when voting preferences change from one CEO to another within the same company, indicating “that C.E.O.s are a political force, with potentially important implications for firms they manage and for the nature of democracy,” the authors of the study wrote.

In international news, the U.K. government has been ramping up its battle against modern slavery this summer according to JD Supra.  Calling forced labor and human trafficking “the greatest evil of our time,” newly elected Prime Minister Theresa May has allocated ₤33 million of her aid budget to create the International Modern Slavery fund, which focuses on high-risk countries.  This spotlight on modern slavery follows a recent decision by Britain’s High Court to hand down the first civil penalty for victims of modern slavery.

 

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