All Insights Articles

A new working paper co-authored by Professor Peter Schott links the sharp decrease in U.S. manufacturing employment after 2001 to a substantial shift in U.S. trade policy towards China in late 2000.

Any large organization has multiple stakeholders with different needs. And a truly global business has to deal with tremendous variation in cultural and regulatory contexts. For example, in the U.S., per capita credit card penetration is 2.5—meaning there are more than 2 credit cards for each person in the country. In Saudi Arabia, where Islam forbids the use of credit, the penetration rate is .04. How can a company cope with exponentially increasing complexity as it moves to more and more markets? And are there some businesses that don't translate easily—or at all—across borders?

The cost to produce energy from renewable sources, such as wind and solar, has fallen dramatically in recent decades, but so has the cost of natural gas. Daniel Gross, a renewable energy investor, discusses what it will take to make wind and solar cost-competitive.

Technology and globalization have radically changed the way many people do business, but do such concrete considerations also drive creative undertakings? Economist Tyler Cowen discusses the brave new world of cultural production and the increasingly demanding consumer on the receiving end.

State and local governments are sitting on more than $1 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities. Updated accounting rules will require state and local governments to begin reporting their pension liabilities in a format more closely resembling for-profit accounting. Will clearer accounting contribute to a solution of the under-funding crisis?

Esther Duflo, a development economist at MIT and director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, explains how our understanding of the economic lives of the poor has grown more complex in recent years. While Duflo doesn't see any silver bullet that will end poverty, she points to progress, in part from the use of randomized control trials to solve specific problems.

Nathan Novemsky, professor of marketing, explains to his Problem Framing course how Prospect Theory–the series of ideas and experimental observations that lie at the root of behavioral economics–elucidates one of the psychological biases that can cause people to approach the same problem in very different ways. Understanding these biases can help one see problems more clearly.

What does it mean to be a leader and a woman? How much do bias and cultural assumptions still present challenges for women as they move up in their careers? A panel of accomplished Yale SOM alumnae discussed their experiences of leadership and management and reflect on strategies women can use to navigate in the workplace.

Professor K. Sudhir discusses India’s move to expand the presence of foreign retailers to modernize the country’s retail sector and boost economic growth.

Steven Brill, a journalist and serial entrepreneur, lays out his case that fixing the public education system is critical to the future of the U.S. economy. In his view, charter schools demonstrate some successful tactics for education reform, but big questions and big challenges remain if these tactics are going to be brought to scale.