Research
A Partisan Mismatch with State Government Means Higher Borrowing Costs for Cities
Are red cities marooned in blue states—and blue cities in red states—at a financial disadvantage because of partisan politics? A new study co-authored by Yale SOM’s Anya Nakhmurina finds that cities whose leaders are from the opposite political party as their state governors are penalized in the bond market.
AI Photo Analysis Illuminates How Personality Traits Predict Career Trajectories
Recent advancements in AI have made it possible to infer personality traits from a single photograph of a person’s face. A new study co-authored by Yale SOM’s Kelly Shue applies these techniques to a large set of photos of MBA graduates to assess the effects of personality on labor market outcomes.
The Key Information Hiding Behind ‘Consensus’ Target Stock Prices
Ordinary investors generally can only see an average of analysts’ target prices for a given stock. In a new study, Yale SOM’s Thomas Steffen and Frank Zhang find that when the degree of variation within that “consensus” figure is large, it’s a bad sign for future returns.
Investors Care About ESG-Related News—When It Impacts Returns
A new paper co-authored by Professor Edward Watts examines how retail investors weigh news about a public company’s environmental, social, and governance activity.
Settling the Debate on Whether Green Investing Pays
In a new study, Yale SOM’s Theis Jensen and his co-authors find that the return from green investments relative to brown ones is slightly negative—which is actually good news for the planet.
Swings in Building Permits Can Help Predict Financial Downturns
Yale SOM’s Cameron LaPoint and his co-author painstakingly assembled a century of local building permits. Again and again, they found, peaks in the issuing of permits preceded periods of economic turmoil.
When Cash Isn’t an Option, Consumers Lose Out
Paper currency is associated with crime and tax avoidance, but low-income consumers often rely on it. New research from Yale SOM’s David Argente puts a figure on how much those consumers forfeit when governments ban cash payments.
Your Friends Have More Friends Than You—and That’s a Good Thing for Marketers and Public Health Officials
In a new study, Professor Vineet Kumar and his co-authors offer two ways to seed interventions in social networks based on the “friendship paradox.”
Why It’s Harder for Women Founders to Get Venture Capital Funding
A new study co-authored by Yale SOM’s Heather Tookes shows that women are less likely to get funding compared to men with similar entrepreneurial history. One reason is that investors who have experienced a poor outcome from a woman-led startup shy away from other women founders—but benefitting from successes of women founders doesn’t lead them to invest more.
Do Nudges Help Americans Save for Retirement? Not as Much as We Thought.
Two decades ago, Prof. James Choi’s research suggested that automatic enrollment and escalation and could have a sizeable impact on savings. Now he and his co-authors have looked at these programs again and found that under real-world conditions, the effect on savings is much smaller than expected.
