The Latest
Not All Second Chances Are Good Ones
Hengchen Dai finds that hitting the reset button can help those who have recently struggled, but erodes the motivation and execution of top performers
The Healthy Upside of Thinking about an Older You
Consciously imagining our older self can spur us to take better care of ourselves now
Why Kickstarter Funders Quickly Kick in the Last 5 Percent
Research shows that people have a sincere desire to see projects take flight
Ignorance — About One’s Investments, Anyway — Isn’t Always Bliss
Valentin Haddad’s research looks at the phenomenon of “information aversion,” when individual investors stop tracking their portfolios for fear of bad news
Could Costly Housing Bring Down Superstar Cities?
Stuart Gabriel’s research shows how a vibrant economic hub loses essential residents
Attracting Early Adopters: Best Way to Overcome Consumer Resistance to Innovative Products
Chris Tang’s research suggests a two-step pricing strategy can maximize sales and profits
Quantitative Easing Kept the Foreclosure Crisis from Being Even Worse
The Fed’s gambit didn’t trigger a home-price recovery, but research shows it reduced subprime foreclosure risk
How Life Insurers Insulate the Markets from Turmoil
Valentin Haddad’s research finds that insurers’ patient investing shields risky assets — and those who hold them — from steeper declines
When It Pays Not to Help Your Customers Comparison Shop
Rakesh Sarin creates a model that shows consumer “ambiguity” about product quality should drive marketing and brand management strategy
Why Can’t We All Get Along? On Some Things, We Do
The narrative of a growing cultural divide, while partly true, conceals a more nuanced picture
Using Ancestral Characteristics to Study Modern Economics
A database of pre-industrial sampling supports historical and ethnographic research
How Local Governance Came to England’s Economy
Nico Voigtländer found that to combat arbitrary taxes and corruption, merchants persuaded the king to cede control
To Wall Street, There’s No Crisis Like a Banking Crisis
Tyler Muir finds that neither war nor deep recession darkens investor sentiment like sudden turmoil in the financial system
Keynes vs. FDR: Lessons from the Great Recession
Sebastian Edwards finds Keynes’ public take-down of Roosevelt’s gold policies still relevant today
An Aerial, as Opposed to Ground-Level, View of Time
A novel framework proposes to reduce angst over schedules and lives
The Moat That Keeps Complex Asset Strategies Profitable
Andrea Eisfeldt finds that hedge funds with infrastructure to execute sophisticated arbitrage crowd out less-expert investors