Our Most-Read Stories of 2024
This year, faculty and alumni experts helped us understand issues including the expanding role of AI in our society, the new space economy, the impact of gender in the workplace, the keys to financing a greener economy, and the psychological quirks that lead us toward irrational economic choices.
Raise the Bar: Research-Based Ideas to Improve Your 2024
January 02, 2024
Harness your own creativity, learn to leverage ChatGPT, and have some fun are three of the suggestions from our faculty to help you make your new year healthier, more rewarding, and more prosperous.
What the ‘Door Plug’ on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 Tells Us about the Airline Industry
January 19, 2024
The door plug that plunged from an Alaska Airlines aircraft in flight earlier this month was there to seal off an unused emergency exit. Amy Fraher, a Yale SOM lecturer and former commercial pilot, explains why—and says the incident reflects a worrying approach to safety.
What Does It Take to Build a Zero-Emission Hotel?
January 25, 2024
When real-estate developer Bruce Becker ’85 set out to convert New Haven’s historic, Marcel Breuer-designed Pirelli Building into the boutique Hotel Marcel, he realized that exclusively using renewable sources of energy would make the project more financially sustainable.
El Salvador Adopted Bitcoin as an Official Currency; Salvadorans Mostly Shrugged
January 29, 2024
In an effort to boost financial inclusion, El Salvador made Bitcoin an official currency and offered incentives for adopting it. A new study co-authored by Yale SOM’s David Argente and Diana Van Patten found that a lack of trust caused use of the cryptocurrency to fall off quickly. Their study provides lessons to countries aiming to adopt digital currencies.
Assembling an Economy in Space
February 13, 2024
Commercial space is developing quickly, but public funds remain key to building out a self-sustaining economy in orbit around Earth. Sven Eenmaa ’98, director of investment and economic analysis at the International Space Station U.S. National Laboratory, points to falling costs and expanding infrastructure as signs of the innovation and growth to come.
What the U.S. Has to Gain from Supporting Ukraine
February 15, 2024
Prof. Jeffrey Sonnnenfeld and co-author Steven Tian write that spending on weapons and aid boosts the U.S. economy, strengthens the NATO alliance, and weakens the Russian war machine.
Is AI a Savior or a Peril—or Both?
March 20, 2024
With applications of artificial intelligence spreading from the realm of data science to the apps at your fingertips, a day-long conference at the Yale School of Management considered how to unlock the technology’s positive potential while containing possibilities for misuse, misinformation, and labor-market mayhem.
What Did the Last Four Years Teach Us about Managing Inflation?
April 22, 2024
Central banks around the world have faced years of extraordinary circumstances, including the COVID-related crash of the global economy, a spike in inflation, and an ensuing runup in interest rates. William English, Eugene F. Williams, Jr. Professor of the Practice and a former economist at the Federal Reserve, discusses the lessons learned and what still stands in the way of a soft landing.
How Shadow Banning Can Silently Shift Opinion Online
May 09, 2024
In a new study, Yale SOM’s Tauhid Zaman and Yen-Shao Chen show how a social media platform can shift users’ positions or increase overall polarization by selectively muting and amplifying posts in ways that appear neutral to an outside observer. Zaman says that the dangers of such “shadow banning” are much more immediate than the concerns that led Congress to force a sale of TikTok.
AI Can Write a More Believable Restaurant Review Than a Human Can
May 28, 2024
Yale SOM’s Balázs Kovács used ChatGPT to write a series of Yelp-style reviews, as well as collecting real reviews from the site, and then asked human subjects to decide which was the real thing. They were more convinced of the authenticity of the AI-written reviews.
What We Get Wrong about the Effects of Population Growth
June 07, 2024
New research co-authored by Professor Jason Dana finds that people over-focus on increased consumption without considering the positive effects of increased productivity.
Can Reflection Dislodge a Faulty Intuition?
June 11, 2024
Sometimes our gut is right. But a new study co-authored by Yale SOM’s Shane Frederick shows that when it’s not, the erroneous intuition can be difficult to override. Those who think that careful deliberation can overcome impulsive misjudgments may have to think again.
Doing What You Love Doesn’t Always Pay for Women
July 02, 2024
Women and men have long sorted into different academic fields and occupations. New research from Yale SOM’s Adriana Germano shows how the seemingly gender-neutral advice to "follow your passions" helps explain the gender gap in lucrative STEM fields.
The Fed Is Cutting Rates Soon. Should I Wait to Get a Loan?
September 03, 2024
The Federal Reserve is expected to lower interest rates at its meeting on September 17–18. Many homebuyers and other borrowers incorrectly believe that they get a lower rate by waiting until a cut becomes official, according to Prof. Kelly Shue. This misconception is so widespread that it can undercut the effectiveness of Fed monetary policy.
How to Keep a Workplace Happy in a Divided Political Moment
September 04, 2024
Does politics have a place in the office during a time of deep division? Yale SOM’s Heidi Brooks, an expert on everyday leadership, says that focusing on a respectful, compassionate, and curious culture is more effective than an outright ban on talking politics.
What Will It Take to Make Housing More Affordable?
September 06, 2024
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is campaigning on a proposal to make housing more affordable by providing down payment assistance for first-time home buyers and encouraging construction of new housing. We asked Prof. Cameron LaPoint, whose research interests include real estate and household finance, if these policy changes can make a difference.
Do Nudges Help Americans Save for Retirement? Not as Much as We Thought.
September 23, 2024
Many American workers are automatically enrolled in a retirement savings plan at a new job, and those plans often include an automatic escalation feature that bumps up the savings rate each year. Those nudges were motivated in part by Prof. James Choi’s research, which suggested they 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.
Finding the Blueprint for Thriving Organizations
October 08, 2024
Professor James Baron’s research helped establish the now-commonplace understanding that the way a company organizes itself—what we now call its human-capital strategy—is key to creating a happy, equitable culture and ultimately to survival and success.
Why It’s Harder for Women Founders to Get Venture Capital Funding
October 18, 2024
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.
A home under construction in the Verona at Lake Las Vegas subdivision in Henderson, Nevada, in June 2024.
Swings in Building Permits Can Help Predict Financial Downturns
November 22, 2024
For a new study, Yale SOM's Cameron LaPoint and his co-author painstakingly assembled a dataset tracking local building permits over the last century. Again and again, they found, peaks in the issuing of permits preceded periods of economic turmoil, including the Great Depression, the oil shock recession of the mid 1970s, and the Global Financial Crisis.
Settling the Debate on Whether Green Investing Pays
December 02, 2024
Does climate-friendly investing earn a higher return? In a new study, Yale SOM’s Theis Jensen and his co-authors find that the “greenium”—the return from green investments relative to brown ones—is slightly negative. He says that’s actually good news for the planet.
Is the Affordable Care Act on Life Support?
December 04, 2024
Since the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act, a wide-ranging set of reforms to the American healthcare system, the uninsured rate has been cut in half, falling from 16% to 8%. We talked to Yale SOM’s Dr. Howard Forman about what the ACA has achieved and what aspects of the law could be weakened under a Republican administration.