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The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

The debate over ‘judicial activism’ has flourished in recent decades, but the term was in fact coined 70 years ago, by the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. The legal academy has bemoaned the term as perpetually ill-defined, but can this be attributed to its equivocal beginnings on the pages of Fortune magazine? This chapter investigates the circumstances in which the term was produced and the early meanings given to it in scholarly work. It is argued that there was very little effort on the part of legal academics and political scientists to gather a consensus as to definition, or otherwise to treat the terminology with caution, before the term was wrested from the university cloisters and captured by the popular media in the mid-1960s.

We present a model of how culture affects both the conceptualizations and behavioral consequences of power, focusing in particular on how culture moderates the previously demonstrated positive relationship between power and assertive action. Western cultures tend to be characterized by independence, whereas individuals in East Asian cultures tend to think of themselves as interdependent. As a result, power is conceptualized around influence and entitlement in the West, and Westerners behave assertively to satisfy oneself. In contrast, East Asians conceptualize power around responsibility and tend to consider how their behavior affects others. As a result the experience of power activates a tendency toward restraint. Therefore, power is associated with an increase in assertive action in independent cultures, whereas it leads to restraint of action in interdependent cultures. We discuss a number of moderators of this effect including the type of actions and the groups who are affected by those actions.

[Conquer with inaction] (L. C. Tsu (600 BC) Tao te ching).

Human resource analytics (HRA) is a practice that is emerging within the human resources function. This chapter aims to provide an overview of the knowledge that currently exists about HRA and to identify facilitators and restraints of using HRA. Based on both emerging trends in the literature and in-depth interviews with key practitioners in the field, the authors deduce recommendations for organisations to effectively employ HRA. The analysis shows that HRA is ready to add value towards organisational effectiveness, although barriers exist in realising its potential for the same. Facilitators of HRA include the right set of competencies, with relationship building identified as especially important.

Academic freedom is often constrained by self-censorship. Measurement of this constraint is difficult because it is often unconscious, so it is useful to explore the underlying motivations. Greater-good arguments are an important motivator of self-censorship. Humans are social creatures who fear being accused of harming the greater good. When a scholar’s findings conflict with a paradigm alleged to serve the greater good, self-censorship is tempting. However, the greater good is not necessarily served by paradigms that invoke it. Discrepant data often lead to truths that a dominant paradigm obscures. Thus, the greater good is better served by a free flow of evidence than by conforming to a paradigm that evokes the greater good. This chapter presents an example in the Social Sciences. The paradigm of social harmony in the state of nature appears to serve the greater good, and evidence of aggression in the state of nature is often dismissed. But understanding the conflict in the state of nature can help people manage aggression today. This example can help scholars recognize and transcend the natural tendency to self-censor.