This article examines various economic and sociopolitical perspectives on reducing working hours in the current context. Six main approaches are analysed: the income-leisure choice of neoclassical economics, the distributive conflict of Marxist political economy, the optimization of production processes, the centrality of reproductive work in feminist economics, ecological considerations, and post-work theories. The article shows how these perspectives, often complementary but sometimes contradictory, offer a complex and multifaceted view of the issue. It concludes that the confluence of factors such as technological changes, environmental concerns and new conceptions of work is driving a renewed debate about reducing working hours, posing challenges and opportunities for transforming work organization in contemporary society.

Universities can be considered a key element in promoting sustainable development through education, research, innovation and social leadership. In this educational-focused article, we discuss the need to provide students with the knowledge and skills needed to understand and address sustainability challenges. To do this, it will be very important to introduce sustainability – and also other related concepts – in university curriculums and, in particular, in Economic and Business courses, where future business leaders are currently being formed. For this reason, the article presented has a double objective, on the one hand, to answer this question: what are we teaching about this topic in universities and, in particular, in Economics and Business courses; and on the other hand: how are we integrating it into curriculum. The article reviews over time the main subjects that have covered this topic – from business ethics to ESG criteria, to CSR – and proposes different strategies to integrate this content into the curriculum.

Quantum computers are receiving more and more attention in the media, with the promise of becoming a revolution in computing and digital communications. Nowadays, we cannot know for sure whether this promise will be fulfilled, but it is possible to get an idea of where things could go. The objective of this article is to give a brief overview of quantum information technologies and their future possibilities. After a concise summary of the fundamentals of quantum computing and the current state of the technology, we make a review of the main areas in which the technology can lead to innovations that substantially improve the performance of the current technology. Finally, we point out some possible effects of the development of quantum computing in today’s economy and society.

Over the last decade, the business world has experienced abrupt changes due to the irruption of the platform economy. E-commerce giants and application-based business models have become key spaces in the economy, facilitating consumption in terms of convenience, immediacy, and availability. However, these new ways of organizing services, while easing the consumer experience, have controversial effects on the organization of work. This article provides a critical reflection on the newly emerging jobs in the platform economy sector. It will highlight the importance of the imaginary of consumption as a key enabler of these changes in employment.

In the last twenty-five years – from 1996 to 2021 – a series of actions have marked the evolution of the economy: from transformations linked to new information and communication technologies to the Covid-19 pandemic, among other things, through to the financial and economic crisis of the second half of the first decade of the 21st century. In this article, we look at the impact of events in the last twenty-five years on economics teaching, whether this is evolving alongside the economic reality or not, what has given rise to a mismatch between economics and the social and economic reality. To analyze this, in the first section, we will tackle the social mission of the “economist” in the sense of being teachers of highly diverse collectives, and in the second section, we will reflect on the evolution of economics teaching at University. The analysis leads us to conclude that, although economics teaching has varied over time, it has not undergone substantial change in recent decades. The lack of diversity of thinking in economics curricula joins forces with a lack of diversity among prominent thinkers and professionals to often translate into an incomplete view explaining the complex economic reality and an interaction with other disciplines, particularly social sciences.

In the last twenty-five years – from 1996 to 2021 – a series of actions have marked the evolution of the economy: from transformations linked to new information and communication technologies to the Covid-19 pandemic, among other things, through to the financial and economic crisis of the second half of the first decade of the 21st century. In this article, we look at the impact of events in the last twenty-five years on economics teaching, whether this is evolving alongside the economic reality or not, what has given rise to a mismatch between economics and the social and economic reality. To analyze this, in the first section, we will tackle the social mission of the “economist” in the sense of being teachers of highly diverse collectives, and in the second section, we will reflect on the evolution of economics teaching at University. The analysis leads us to conclude that, although economics teaching has varied over time, it has not undergone substantial change in recent decades. The lack of diversity of thinking in economics curricula joins forces with a lack of diversity among prominent thinkers and professionals to often translate into an incomplete view explaining the complex economic reality and an interaction with other disciplines, particularly social sciences.

On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the opening of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and its Economics and Business Studies, a group of professors from the tourism field of the institution reflect upon the current situation of the sector at a key moment. On the one hand, they bring their ideas on what has been the evolution of tourism over the last twenty-five years and the elements and key factors that have conditioned this evolution to date. On the other hand, based on the crisis generated by the effects of the pandemic, they deliberate on identifying possible future scenarios and the key factors that may condition them.

The article analyses, from a historical perspective, the geopolitics of energy in the framework of the capitalist system. The first section explains the birth of the geopolitics of energy (a geography of energy by state and the kind of energy relations between states), arguing that its birth is associated with fossil fuels and its goal is the safeguarding of supremacy through both territorial control of energy sources (or flows) and their commodification. After a brief review of the geopolitics of oil, the article ventures on what, in the present context of capitalism, the geopolitics of renewables might be. The main conclusion is that, because of the inherent features of renewables, at the end of the day the outcome will be the result of a political choice. The question is whether this choice will also be aimed at both grounding hegemony on international energy relations and funding the global unbalances of the system.

For a sustainable post-Covid-19 recovery strategy, humanity faces two major challenges: 1. Just prosperity: The creation of a resilient and fair economy that delivers prosperity for all; 2. Public and planetary health: protect human health, together with the reduction of environmental impacts below thresholds of planetary boundaries including greenhouse gas emissions. The Covid-19 crisis could represent an opportunity for responses that integrate different goals, or a drawback if some are prioritized without considering their impacts on the others. New kinds of informed solutions are needed to ensure long-term sustainability in social, economic, and environmental terms. This article addresses the research question: How could developed countries manage a sustainable recovery that provides a good life for all within public and planetary health? First, it argues that economic growth is not compatible with environmental sustainability. Green Keynesianism is based on the hypothesis that economic growth can be decoupled from environmental impacts, but this has not happened and it is unlikely to happen. Second, it introduces degrowth as an alternative to green growth. Degrowth challenges the hegemony of economic growth and calls for a democratically led redistributive downscaling of production and consumption in industrialised countries as a means to achieve environmental sustainability, social justice, and well-being. Third, it traces the recent evolution of the term degrowth from an activist slogan to an academic concept. Last, it calls for an alliance of alternatives that could foster a deeply radical socio-ecological transformation.

In the past four decades, the centre of economic power has moved from industry to finance. Against this backdrop, the financialization of the water industry has made the hydrosocial cycle more complex, witnessing the emergence of new financial logics and financing instruments. This change has thoroughly transformed the relation between infrastructures and water companies, citizens, other water users and the environment. In this article, and based on previous work, I present a summary that debates around the financialization of the water cycle, through the example of the provision and development of financialized water infrastructures in London.