By Isabella Picillo

As of September 2018, nearly 100,000 establishments which temporarily shut down due to the coronavirus are now out of business. Many of these establishments were small businesses which did not have the resources to stay afloat. However, large corporations, which do have the resources to remain open, have also struggled to respond to changes in consumer behavior, attitudes, and purchasing habits while complying with national, state, and local laws. Many of these changes caused by the coronavirus will likely remain as the pandemic abates. Indeed, businesses must adapt, innovate, and even reinvent themselves in order to survive the effects of the pandemic.

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By Nick Weising

Imagine never withdrawing cash from an ATM or carrying a wallet ever again. Instead, you have immediate mobile access to your cards and bank account. Your investment and insurance needs are all satisfied by apps. This image is not one of the far future but instead of the next couple years, and it is accelerating closer to the present thanks to the coronavirus.

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By Derek Kartalian

Smart cities are no longer science fiction. The Internet of Things (IoT) allows technologies like household devices to communicate with each other through network connections. This system of connections is the core unifying concept of all smart devices, small or large, simple and complex. The most popular form of IoT devices are smart home technologies, such as Amazon’s Alexa or Google Home. While these gadgets seek to make everyday life at home more efficient, smart cities bring this level of technological efficiency and advancement to the planning and infrastructure of entire urban areas. The integration of IoT technology into city infrastructure can improve many aspects of society, such as waste management, lighting systems, traffic congestion, energy consumption, and building structural health.

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By Kyle Castellanos

During the post-war era, it became customary for developed countries to opt into regional free trade agreements. These intergovernmental treaties offered citizens lower priced and higher quality goods while extending governments more exportation opportunities, critical for most countries hoping to recover from the recession. Gradually, these countries began to adopt similar trade agreements and establish intergovernmental organizations which encouraged market specialization through regional free trade.

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By Megan Friscia

Numerous states with legalized recreational marijuana and medicinal marijuana programs have recognized dispensaries as essential businesses, alongside grocery stores, pharmacies, police stations, and more during the wake of the coronavirus. Essential businesses are those which are eligible to remain open during a lockdown; though the Federal Department of Homeland Security outlined what essential businesses are, the choice of which businesses qualify as “essential” is ultimately a state issue.

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By Wally Chang

When the American people hid away in their homes, stopped going to work, and stopped spending money, the American economy too, shrank back. United States GDP dropped 9.1% in Q2 2020, a drop of unprecedented proportions, job employment fell by 20.5 million jobs in April alone, and perhaps most interestingly and impactfully, total retail sales dramatically fell 14.7% from February 2020 to April 2020. Even with companies making dramatic changes to their financial structures in hopes of minimizing losses, the impacts of reduced spending in the retail industry were felt by nearly all outlets. The hardest hit retail sector was undoubtedly that of clothing and clothing accessories, with a decrease in sales of 50.5% from February 2020 to March 2020, nearly double the decrease of the next hardest hit industry: that of furniture and home furnishings. Even in July 2020, apparel sales were down 25% year over year. In response to the dire effects on the economy, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES), was passed by the US Government on March 27, 2020, releasing $300 billion in economic aid through the medium of stimulus checks to support jobless families and to boost faltering retail spending.

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By Davis Donley

Global electric vehicle market penetration is only 2.8% and countries are pledging to reduce fossil fuel usage over the next decade. Consumers are becoming more concerned about environmentalism, governments are instituting global emissions regulations, and companies are improving charging infrastructure and driving ranges. The market is reacting favorably—the EV stocks tracked by Barrons are up roughly 325% year to date. The International Energy Agency projects that EV adoption will reach 125 million cars by 2030, and some analysts predict that by 2027, electric vehicles of all types will make up 40% of global light-vehicle output. While global EV sales increased by 65% from 2017 to 2018, EV sales have begun to slow. In 2019, year-over-year growth was just 9%. And in 2020, EV sales declined by 25% during the first quarter of 2020. Despite the inevitable future growth of EVs as fossil fuels are phased out over the next couple of decades, the lack of earnings, increasing competition, and the rich valuations of EV companies make them poor investments.

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By Raghav Madhukar

This article is not about the pandemic nor the all-pervading economic crisis. Neither is it about the tumultuous state of American politics. It’s about the most significant news you’ve never heard of. Yes, I’m talking about the LIBOR; more precisely, its retirement.

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By Ash Arumugam

Black Lives Matter is not a novel crusade. It is the continuing fight for racial equality in the United States. This past summer was a turning point in the minds of many Americans, when Black death after Black death was publicized and politicized. Indeed, the Black Lives Matter

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By Nadia Khan

Years of work and millions of dollars devoted to gender equality in the workforce are disappearing into thin air. As pressures mount in the midst of COVID-19, working women are shouldering new burdens and making the difficult decision to quit their jobs. This turn for the worse in the hard-fought struggle for workplace gender equality is fueled by latent socio-economic inequalities that the pandemic has laid bare. As many as 2 million women report planning to leave the workforce. By some estimates, women would be set back half a decade.

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Michelle Tang is a junior in the Hotel School minoring in Information Science. On campus she is involved with Camp Kesem, Hotel Ezra Cornell, Phi Chi Theta, and Cornell Business Review. She loves making sweets in her free time and sharing her creations with friends. She previously competed in state level baking competitions and later started a small business selling desserts to people in the area.

Photo Credit: Michelle Tang

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Ted Teng ’79 graduated from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration. Post-graduation, Mr. Teng worked for various hotel companies including Starwood, Sheraton, Westin, Wrather, and Wyndham International. He went on to lead as CEO of Prime Opus Partners and later led The Leading Hotels of the World as President and CEO for almost 11 years. Throughout his 40-year career, Mr. Teng has helped grow some of the most prominent brands in the industry. He now serves as First Vice President of Cornell Hotel Society and takes part in various organizations in the Hotel School. Mr. Teng now enjoys owning 100% of his time and, along with volunteering his time to Cornell University, enjoys life by going on runs and spending time in his Texas, Cayuga Lake and Kahala Beach homes.

Photo Credit: Ted Teng

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By Jessica Zand

From purchasing to selling ads, Google is involved in every step of the online ad process. In most cases, Google is the only option for advertisers and publishers that want to attract a large consumer base. Antitrust enforcers and advertisers are starting to ask, has Google become too powerful?

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By Nadia Khan

The Informal Sector makes up a third of GDP and 70% of employment in emerging markets worldwide. Yet, more than likely, you’ve never even heard of it. While global regulatory bodies like the UN and International Labour Organization (ILO) have been trying to make amends for years, details of the injustices faced by laborers in the informal sector, particularly women, are hardly front-page news.

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By Raghav Madhukar

“We have the Internet of everything, but not the inclusion of everyone,” said Ajay Banga (CEO, MasterCard). But what does it really mean to include everyone? For starters, it means providing everyone the opportunity to improve their economic circumstances – a key facet of that being access to formal finance.

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By Isabella Picillo

Economies are dependent on the good health and well-being of the people that make them functional. Globally, COVID-19 has sickened more than one million individuals in a matter of weeks and has produced a death toll which has surpassed 250,000 and is likely to grow further.

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Company brief: FoodFul modernizes dairy herd management by installing sensors in barns to monitor cow’s health and feed intake. The scanners are placed in the feeding alley of barns to determine if a cow is eating or not. Machine learning algorithms are applied to the data collected to identify which cows are on the onset of sickness and which cows are most feed efficient.

Photo Credit: Han Wang

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Lindy Li, a graduate of Princeton University in 2012 and a first-generation American, is the youngest female Congressional candidate in U.S. history. Beyond that, she carries a myriad of experiences and skill sets under her belt— including serving as the longest consecutive female elected class president in Princeton history, professional working experience in investment banking at Credit Suisse, Merck & Co, and Morgan Stanley, and finally, spearheading fundraising efforts for the American Association for Cancer Research Foundation as the youngest trustee on America’s oldest cancer research organization. Currently, she’s actively involved in the Biden campaign, and has been featured in publications like The New York Times, Forbes, The Washington Post, NBC News, and Cosmopolitan.

Photo Credit: Lindy Li

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By Aditi Joshi

The United States health care system is facing a quality crisis. Industry players are in constant competition to strike a balance between the quintessential health care trifecta: low cost, high quality, and easy access. It seems the only solution to achieving easy access and low costs comes at the expense of high quality. But in order to achieve high-quality care, costs dramatically increase and thus restrict access to adequate care to those who can afford it. Costs have risen so precipitously that according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the US spent more money on health care in 2017 (17.9% of national output) than any other country in the OECD’s 36-country consortium. As a nation, we are spending more than twice as much per capita than the average comparable developed nation, such as Germany and the United Kingdom. Yet our current quality of care does not reflect these monumental costs.

Photo Credit: Tincture

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By Alexandre Taylor

On any given day, Adam Neumann, co-founder and CEO of American real estate firm WeWork, could be drunk, stoned, or both. Meetings were held between working hours, from midnight to two in the morning. Company retreats included regular blackouts, and for one employee, the unfortunate experience of being urinated on. Despite leaving the company, that same employee told New York Magazine that the retreat was one of the greatest moments of her life. 

Photo Credit: Edward Guo

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