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Faculty Viewpoints

  • Horatio Alger Is a Hoax, But We Can Still Celebrate the American Dream

    Horatio Alger, the 19th-century writer whose name became shorthand for self-improvement, is in the news because of Justice Clarence Thomas’s connection to the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans. But Yale SOM’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld says that Alger’s story says more about mythmaking than it does about the American dream.

    An illustration of Horatio Alger with his characters standing on top of copies of his books
  • Bringing the Economist’s Tool Kit to the Policies that Shape Markets 

    Katja Seim, the Sharon Oster Professor of Economics and Management, investigates the complex forces behind the infrastructure of everyday life with an aim of enabling data-driven improvement to policy tools and making markets function better.

    Katja Seim
  • What Does It Mean to Be Generous?

    Deborah Small, Adrian C. Israel Professor of Marketing, explores how we make choices that affect our own and others’ welfare and what leaders need to understand about behavioral marketing to expand social impact.

    An illustration of hands raised in front of a heart
  • How Putin Cannibalizes the Russian Economy to Fund His War

    Yale SOM’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian write that the Russian leader is fueling battles in Ukraine by shaking down his own people and leveraging his country’s future.

    Vladimir Putin holding a wine glass
  • Meet the Five Schools of Thought Dominating the Conversation about AI

    Yale SOM’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian and economists Paul Romer and Dirk Bergemann explain the arguments from each camp in the debate over artificial intelligence, from true believers to alarmists.

    An abstract illustration of networking and artificial intelligence
  • We Put Aside the Hype and Asked CEOs What They’re Actually Planning for AI

    The headlines are full of grand and sometimes terrifying speculation about the potential of artificial intelligence. At Yale SOM’s CEO Summit recently, Prof. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld asked business leaders for some real talk about how their companies are using the technology.

    An abstract photo of an office building
  • The Business of ‘Anti-Woke’ Is Falling Flat

    Yale SOM’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian write that the exchange-traded funds that boycott companies taking action on social issues are underperforming the market and struggling to find investors.

    Vivek Ramaswamy at the Vision 2024 National Conservative Forum in Charleston, South Carolina, in March 2023. 
  • It’s Time to Disentangle from China

    As the risks of dependence on China become more apparent, a few companies are diversifying their supply chains. But inertia and short-term thinking are keeping many companies tethered to markets and suppliers in the world’s second-largest economy, write Yale SOM’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian and investor Kyle Bass.

    The Zhongfu Shenying Carbon Fiber Company in Xining, China
  • Could Better Rules Have Saved Silicon Valley Bank?

    Was the closure of Silicon Valley Bank in March a failure of regulation? Greg Feldberg, director of research at the Yale Program on Financial Stability, recently investigated what could have happened if tighter regulations had applied to SVB. He found that better rules could have made a difference.

    A man reads a notice on the door of Silicon Valley Bank while someone talks on a cell phone inside.
  • Virtual Lecture: Silicon Valley Bank and the Anatomy of a Bank Run

    In this extended video, Prof. Andrew Metrick, director of the Yale Program on Financial Stability, explains why Silicon Valley Bank failed earlier this year, and what the collapse tells us about banking, bailouts, and the nature of financial crises.

    A screenshot of Andrew Metrick lecturing with a table of assets and liabilities