Politics

Education and Learning

Student Experience

External

Off

IB African Business Careers Club claimed top honours at the Cambridge Africa Together Conference, defeating Oxford, Cambridge, and LSE in a landmark debate on foreign investment in Africa.

Main image: Students from IB African Business Careers Club with Dean Peter Todd | 91��ɫ Business School

3 minute read

How protectionism risks undermining the US economy

Jonathan Haskel — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 10:39:25 +0000

How protectionism risks undermining the US economy

Jonathan Haskel Tue, 25/02/2025 - 10:39

15 July 2026 Knowledge

How to survive as an entrepreneur: insights from Steve Blank

6 July 2026 Knowledge

What business leaders can learn from the erosion of democracy

23 June 2026 Knowledge

Are healthcare market reforms delivering better outcomes for patients?

10 April 2025

Donald Trump’s announcement of wide-ranging tariffs has threatened to upend the rules of global trade that have been in place for decades, impacting supply chains and businesses across the world.

The US President’s plan has been designed, in his words, to be reciprocal. What could be fairer than this? The theory is that the US will charge its trading partners in response to what they charge them.

What this means in practice is that the US will charge a country based on it having a goods trade surplus with the US. Some countries that do not have a notable surplus will still be hit with a universal baseline tariff of 10 per cent. For example, countries in the European Union will be subject to a 20 per cent tariff, while the UK will face the baseline 10 per cent tariff.

As the consequences of these tariffs will have major consequences for the global economy, it is worth considering the logic that has informed this decision and whether it stands up to scrutiny from an economic perspective.

Let’s say a country, for example the UK, is running a goods trade deficit with Costa Rica of £100 worth for bananas. From an economics point of view such a deficit makes perfect sense: the UK does not grow very good bananas, but we are good at education and financial services, which we export by accepting Costa Rican students, and providing secure banking for Costa Rican residents. Therefore, we run a deficit on goods, balanced by a surplus on services.

President Trump's reciprocal tariff calculation asks: what would the British tariff have to be on Costa Rican bananas to rebalance trade in bananas? He appears to have done this by assuming the tariff would raise an import price by a certain percentage, which in turn would cause British consumers to switch away from imported bananas by another percentage, which would then reduce banana imports. Select those percentages and work out the tariff that would entirely wipe out all imports. Then take half of that number (for obscure reasons) and that is the alleged tariff rate which Costa Rica is charging the UK.

These bizarre counterfactual calculations have nothing to do with the actual tariffs which are imposed. True, our bananas trade is likely affected by tariffs and safety standards on agricultural products. But fundamentally the pattern of trade is determined by the patterns of comparative advantage across different countries. To repeat, if the UK is good at financial services and education and Costa Rica is better at bananas, both are better off with free trade.

What then follows from this?

Firstly, these numbers should not be taken as an estimate of the type of tariffs which the US or any other country faces. Average tariff rates which the UK imposes on the US are well below five per cent when calculated properly - that is, zero per cent on the vast majority of goods, and higher percentages on goods like agricultural products.

We should also not assume that the UK has been given special treatment by having a lower rate than other countries. The US has a slightly lower trade deficit with the UK than with Europe, so the simple maths of this calculation would lead to a smaller ‘reciprocal’ tariff.

Thirdly, we should remember that the US is a relatively closed economy. British imports are around 30 per cent of GDP, American imports are around 15 per cent, so we must not overstate the impact of unilateral American restrictions on trade on the world.

Unless we descend into a full trade war, the economy most hurt by these measures is the American economy.

The right response to these tariffs is to carry on trading and let the US sink under the weight of its own bad policies.

More narrowly, what does this mean for the UK? The effects of this policy will of course be concentrated in certain export sectors, such as the car industry, and I would expect policies to be forthcoming to mitigate that adverse shock. But more broadly, we should stay focused on what will get the UK economy growing: policy to encourage science, clusters and startups.

Sign up to our newsletter

Economics & Public Policy

Knowledge Categories

Finance

Academic area

Jonathan Haskel takes a closer look at why "reciprocal" tariffs misunderstand the real nature of global trade

Credit: Nuthawut Somsuk / iStock via Getty Images Plus

3 minute read

Off

Listen: The Standard’s Tech and Science Daily podcast interviews Dr Mark Kennedy on the US supreme court’s TikTok ban

Evie Burrows-Taylor — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 11:43:18 +0000

Listen: The Standard’s Tech and Science Daily podcast interviews Dr Mark Kennedy on the US supreme court’s TikTok ban Evie Burrows-Taylor Mon, 20/01/2025 - 11:43

15 January 2025

Digital transformation

Big Tech

Policy

What business leaders can learn from the erosion of democracy

Namrata Malhotra — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 12:14:02 +0000

What business leaders can learn from the erosion of democracy

Namrata Malhotra Wed, 15/01/2025 - 12:14

More blogs

15 July 2026 Knowledge

How to survive as an entrepreneur: insights from Steve Blank

6 July 2026 Knowledge

What business leaders can learn from the erosion of democracy

23 June 2026 Knowledge

Are healthcare market reforms delivering better outcomes for patients?

6 July 2026

The erosion of democratic institutions cannot be explained solely by the actions of those pushing against democratic norms. It also depends on the response – or lack of response – from those who support them.

We describe this dynamic as a “cycle of passivity”: a process in which people dampen their emotions and voices as reactionaries amplify theirs. We highlight three interlocking mechanisms – tolerance, denial and adherence – that perpetuate this cycle.

Democracy is more than a set of rules

Much of the public discussion about democracy focuses on formal institutions: elections, legislatures and legal systems. These structures matter enormously. But our research suggests that democracy is better understood as an ethos: a shared commitment to values such as inclusion, equality, justice and truth.

Institutions survive not simply because rules exist, but because people remain emotionally invested in the ideals those rules represent. The same principle applies within organisations: corporate cultures, professional standards and institutional missions rely on people's commitment to shared values and their willingness to defend them when challenged.

When that commitment weakens, institutions become vulnerable to change. 91��ɫ shows this often begins through “institutional drift” – small departures from established norms that are tolerated because they seem minor or temporary. Left unchallenged, these deviations can accumulate and contribute to “institutional erosion” – the gradual hollowing out of the values that originally gave institutions legitimacy and purpose.

Tolerance

Tolerance is normally seen as a democratic virtue. We overlook minor missteps to keep social interactions smooth. The problem arises when deliberate violations of democratic norms get treated as one-off occurrences.

When Donald Trump first branded the press “fake news,” many dismissed it as theatre. That rhetoric quickly escalated into calling journalists “the enemy of the people.” During the Brexit campaign, misinformation and attacks on expertise – epitomised by the claim that “people in this country have had enough of experts” – were often brushed away as campaign rhetoric. Yet such messaging systematically chipped away at trust in institutions and expertise, with long-term consequences for democratic debate.

What begins as an exception gradually becomes normalised.

"Democracy is better understood as an ethos: a shared commitment to values such as inclusion, equality, justice and truth."

Denial

As violations mount, tolerance gives way to denial. We reassure ourselves that outrageous events are isolated incidents, that institutions are resilient, and that things will eventually return to normal.

We saw this after the Brexit referendum, initially framed as a singular rupture, rather than part of a longer-term transformation in political norms and public discourse.

Denial serves an important psychological function, shielding us from anxiety. But it also disconnects us from the very emotions that make democratic institutions feel worth defending in the first place.

The same tendency appears in organisations facing ethical failures, cultural decline or governance problems. People may recognise warning signs while convincing themselves that the situation is temporary or that someone else will intervene.

Civility

The final mechanism is adherence. It is the feeling that one is obliged to remain calm and rational, even when provocations are extraordinary. This creates an asymmetry. Reactionary forces deploy anger, outrage and defiance with abandon, presenting their intensity as “authenticity”. By contrast, those defending democratic norms often rely on measured, technocratic language that may appear emotionally distant.

During the Brexit campaign, prominent Remain supporters relied heavily on factual, rational arguments while reinforcing that emotional politics should be avoided. While normatively appealing, this restraint contributed to a mismatch in emotional expressiveness.

The result is a widening gap in emotional engagement. The louder reactionaries become, the more supporters of democratic norms withdraw.

"Organisations do not run on rules and procedures alone. They also depend on emotional commitment to shared values."

For leaders, this insight carries implications beyond politics. Organisations do not run on rules and procedures alone. They also depend on emotional commitment to shared values. When leaders communicate only through detached managerial language while challengers mobilise powerful emotions, institutions can lose legitimacy even when the facts remain on their side.

Breaking free

This cycle is not inevitable, but breaking out requires confronting several uncomfortable truths:

What we are witnessing is not a series of isolated incidents but a systematic erosion of democratic norms. Tolerance, in this context, is not a virtue but complicity.
Expressing emotion in defence of democratic values is not alarmist but essential. Passion and reasoned argument are not mutually exclusive. The most effective advocacy combines evidence and analysis with relatable stories and a clear sense of shared stakes.
Democratic renewal depends on emotional solidarity: shared feelings of pride, hope and even anger that bind people in collective action. Whether in democratic societies or organisational settings, that means creating spaces for public expression and building broad coalitions that include marginalised voices.

Democracy is not a permanent condition. Like any institution, it depends on collective commitment. Our research suggests institutions are rarely weakened by challengers alone. They are also weakened when those who value them remain passive in the face of mounting threats. Silence, however well-intentioned, is not defence. It is surrender.

Find out more about the research

Read Dr Malhotra and Professor Voronov's book chapter

Culture and Inclusion

Leadership

Management

Management & Entrepreneurship

Knowledge Categories

Strategy & Leadership

Academic area

Most people care about democracy. So why do they sit quietly while its foundations are being chipped away – and what can organisations learn from this?

4 minute read

Off

Left vs. Right: How polarised are our everyday lives?

Sanaz Talaifar — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 12:14:02 +0000

Left vs. Right: How polarised are our everyday lives?

Sanaz Talaifar Wed, 15/01/2025 - 12:14

More blogs

15 July 2026 Knowledge

How to survive as an entrepreneur: insights from Steve Blank

6 July 2026 Knowledge

What business leaders can learn from the erosion of democracy

23 June 2026 Knowledge

Are healthcare market reforms delivering better outcomes for patients?

9 June 2026

Today, much of life seems increasingly politically divided.

But little is known about the mundane details of everyday life and how politics seeps into these "smaller" activities – the minutiae of how we spend most of our time, such as when and where we socialise, work or travel. Do political leanings shape how we live our everyday lives?

For our research, Lifestyle Polarization on a College Campus: Do Liberals and Conservatives Behave Differently in Everyday Life?, we wanted to find out more about how people live across the political divide. We went to a large US state university in Austin, Texas and more than 1,200 undergraduates helped us by declaring their political identity: whether and how strongly they felt they were liberal or conservative.

Rather than relying on self-reported surveys to measure behaviour at a single point in time as much previous research has done, we used data collected by these students’ smartphones to track what they were doing over time – were they texting, jogging or in the bar? Did they exercise more at weekends, were their mornings spent online? Using phones, we were able to gather data on some 60 different behavioural tendencies to a level of detail that would have been impossible using more traditional methods.

Political identities impact the choice of third spaces and leisure activities

Political identities structure people’s non-political actions and the way they live, relax and move about. Conservatives tended to spend time in social places such as bars, parties and noisy places. They also engaged in more physical activity. Liberals, by contrast, were more likely to spend time at home, use more social media, or work more. To summarise, conservatives made the most of their local surroundings, while liberals explored more distant places – and were less likely to socialise closer to home.

Even though liberals and conservatives behaved differently in everyday life, the differences were not obvious to members of the campus community. In a separate study, we asked undergraduates if they could estimate differences in how their fellow liberal and conservative classmates lived and spent their time. This was to gauge how accurately people estimate differences in lifestyle among members of their own community. Our participants got nearly 75 per cent of behaviours wrong – they tended to see lifestyle differences when there were in fact none.

Opportunities for interactions at the crossroads of ideology are minimal

Back in the 1950s, political differences between Democrats and Republicans, both in terms of platforms and demographics, were so subtle that political scientists considered this problematic – a lack of differentiation between the parties did not give voters enough choice. This no longer appears to be the case. As our research shows, students living on the same campus have different lifestyles according to their political identities. 91��ɫ has shown that the divide between those on the right and left is growing in terms of policy preferences and disdain for those on the other side. But our work reveals that politics has penetrated even nonpolitical areas of everyday life.

Why does this matter? When people from different political sides get together, they might find they share more than they realise. Face-to-face contact is a way of breaking down barriers, understanding each other and bridging the political divide. Socialising helps to dispel prejudice on both sides and allows people to discover what they have in common.

If people have little chance of crossing paths with those of a different political identity in everyday life, divisions within society may become even deeper.

Our second survey, which asked students about their perceptions of people linked to their politics, revealed some good news – the political divide in everyday life isn’t as extreme as people believe, and this offers scope to build on what they share rather than how they differ.

But in fact, our work asks more questions than it answers. Our innovative use of smartphone data could be developed to tell us more about the wellbeing of people on different sides of the political spectrum. For instance, prior research finds that liberals tend to be unhappier than conservatives. We could look more closely at whether differences in the things liberals and conservatives do each day could explain this partisan wellbeing gap. Smartphones could be used to measure the social media apps people use and when, alongside different measures of wellbeing such as anxiety or loneliness at different times of the day and night.

By looking at the nonpolitical – the fabric of everyday life – we’ve unearthed another source of growing political division in society. As US film director John Cassavetes remarked back in 1971, “there is only one level of agreement. And that is lifestyle. If your lifestyle is like my lifestyle, then we like each other. If your lifestyle is not like my lifestyle then we can see nothing in each other.”.

Our research hints at a troubling possibility: that the lifestyle differences of those on the left and the right mean that they can see nothing in each other.

Explore key findings

Access the paper by Sanaz Talaifar

Culture and Inclusion

Leadership

Healthcare management and policy

Knowledge Categories

Strategy & Leadership

Academic area

Management & Entrepreneurship

A look at the subtle ways our everyday lives differ according to our political leanings

Main image: iStock via Getty Images Plus

4 minute read

Off

Watch: Professor David Miles gives evidence on Chancellor's Budget in the Houses of Parliament

Evie Burrows-Taylor — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 14:44:25 +0000

Watch: Professor David Miles gives evidence on Chancellor's Budget in the Houses of Parliament Evie Burrows-Taylor Tue, 12/11/2024 - 14:44

5 November 2024

Banking

Listen: Professor David Miles appears on The Spectator podcast to discuss Rachel Reeves' new Budget

Evie Burrows-Taylor — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 15:47:53 +0000

Listen: Professor David Miles appears on The Spectator podcast to discuss Rachel Reeves' new Budget Evie Burrows-Taylor Mon, 04/11/2024 - 15:47

31 October 2024

Leadership

Visiting Lecturer Catherine Mulligan about the impact of Donald Trump using Bitcoin

Evie Burrows-Taylor — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 13:40:22 +0000

Visiting Lecturer Catherine Mulligan about the impact of Donald Trump using Bitcoin Evie Burrows-Taylor Fri, 04/10/2024 - 13:40

19 September 2024

Cryptocurrency

The Telegraph quotes Professor David Miles on how low-skilled migrants impact migrants impact the UK’s long-term debt

Evie Burrows-Taylor — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 13:34:00 +0000

The Telegraph quotes Professor David Miles on how low-skilled migrants impact migrants impact the UK’s long-term debt Evie Burrows-Taylor Fri, 04/10/2024 - 13:34

12 September 2024

Jobs and Labour