Business

The financial crisis of 2007-08 resulted in widespread job losses, and the task of recovery has proven to be difficult. While the importance of entrepreneurship is well established in economic theory as well as political discourse, there has been a long-term decline in the number of jobs created by newly established firms in the United States.

Social media have transformed corporate communication practices: Tools such as Twitter and Facebook allow organizations to speak directly to and solicit responses from the public quickly and affordably. But the original intention of these media were to connect friends, not customers or employees; for businesses, accustomed to managing all aspects of communications (and muting dissent), social media can be an awkward fit.

Recent history has been extraordinarily difficult for U.S. and foreign car makers, as they’ve been hit by everything from the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression to a tsunami in Japan. In response to consumer concerns about operating costs, the 2012 Detroit Auto show featured many models with higher gas mileage, but there was also plenty of choice for those still in the market for bigger and more powerful vehicles.

The phenomenon of increasing “job polarization” in the U.S. labor market — a sharper division of work into low- and high-skill categories, with fewer middle-skill jobs left — has been well-documented in academic literature. Technology, globalization and the decline of U.S. manufacturing are often thought to be driving this trend. But the precise dynamics are still being investigated.