Economy, Strategy & Finance Briefs
2019
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The new Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine® (HWOL) Index is declining
October 18 | Agron Nicaj, Associate Economist, The Conference Board | Gad Levanon, PhD, Former Vice President, Labor Markets, The Conference Board | Comments (0)The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine™ (HWOL) Index has been declining for much of 2019, indicating a slowdown in employment growth. While the HWOL index is certainly weakening, it is nowhere near recession territory. The current decline is about the same as the slowdown in 2015-2016, but much smaller than that of the Great Recession.
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6 Things CEOs Must Demand From Washington In 2020
October 08 | Steve Odland, President and CEO, The Conference Board, Inc. | Comments (0)A policy agenda for how America's chief executives can help sustain capitalism
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Making Intangibles Tangible: The Benefits of Measuring Intangible Assets
September 26 | Dr. James Gregory, Senior Fellow, The Conference Board | Comments (0)There are certain basic concepts, such as intangible assets, that as a manager you should know well. Why? Because intangibles are meaningful and material to your business at many different levels, and yet you cannot rely on accounting to help manage them because intangibles are not on your company’s balance sheet unless they have been acquired.
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Overlooked on economy? Rising paychecks for blue-collar workers are shrinking the wage gap
September 18 | Gad Levanon, PhD, Former Vice President, Labor Markets, The Conference Board | Comments (0)Monthly reports on the number of new jobs and the unemployment rate can drown out important trends like these two: After four decades of worsening, wage inequality has started shrinking. And in a twist, America’s blue-collar workers are playing the biggest role in driving that reversal.
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Making Intangibles Tangible: Who is to Blame When Brands are Written Down?
September 11 | Dr. James Gregory, Senior Fellow, The Conference Board | Comments (0)It is time to rethink brand write downs and for all managers to see their real value. Building intangible capital models for evaluating the accretive value and potential of brands is a logical way to understand whether the investment requested for marketing is worthwhile.
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If Innovation is Everything, It’s Nothing: How to Strategically Measure What Matters
September 10 | Erin Grossi, Managing Director of Digital Strategy & Innovation, Accenture | Comments (0)For innovation leaders, mandates for metrics from CEOs and CFOs are nothing new, but how do you measure the competencies that help companies become better innovators, such as creating an innovation culture, or being better prepared to work on diverse teams?
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Currency Wars: What a CEO Should Prepare For
August 13 | Bart van Ark, Managing Director, The Productivity Institute, The University of Manchester | Erik Lundh, Senior Economist, Global, The Conference Board | Comments (0)In the coming months, global executives could find themselves trying to navigate an international currency market wherein both the USD and the RMB are competing in a ‘how low can you go’ devaluation game. This new battleground, if it fully manifests, could be more detrimental and problematic for global businesses than anything we’ve seen from the tariffs to date.
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What's Really Going on with American Consumers?
July 22 | Steve Odland, President and CEO, The Conference Board, Inc. | Comments (0)Too many retailers are shutting down: 2019 just hit its halfway point, but already the number of planned retail store closings has exceeded the total for all of 2018.