Faculty Viewpoints

As housing, unemployment, the stock market, and the overall economy show signs of recovery, Professor Robert Shiller writes in the New York Times that we understand little about how people’s confidence affect these major turning points. "…[P]ublic thinking is inscrutable. We can keep trying to understand it, but we’ll be puzzled again the next time the markets or the economy make major moves."

The Federal Reserve’s policy of open-ended quantitative easing emphasizes short-term tactics over longer-term strategy, writes Stephen Roach. “The focus, instead, should be on accelerating the process of balance-sheet repair, while at the same time returning monetary and fiscal policy levers to more normal settings.”

Senior Associate Dean Jeffrey Sonnenfeld writes that Carnival CEO Micky Arison is a vivid example of the public’s growing skepticism about leaders.

Senior Associate Dean Anjani Jain is sometimes asked whether India’s culture plays a role in the preponderance of influential Indian management thinkers. He offers his perspective in a commentary in the Economic Times.

As legislators negotiate comprehensive immigration reform, Professor Mushfiq Mobarak explains, in a commentary in the New York Times, the importance of skilled foreign workers in sustaining the United States’ comparative advantage in science and innovation.

At the moment we consume, say, a chocolate bar, our brains seamlessly synthesize sensory phenomena, ideas, memories, and expectations—which means that we often don't fully understand why we like the things we like. Psychologist Paul Bloom describes how storytelling and marketing can add layers of meaning to our pleasures.

New research is debunking myths about microfinance and showing how organizations can effectively address problems associated with poverty. Yale faculty Dean Karlan, Tony Sheldon, and Rodrigo Canales discuss the problems and the promise in the field of microfinance and the lessons for other kinds of social enterprise.

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?

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.

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.