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Behavioral

Can ChatGPT Accelerate Social Science Research? 

Yale SOM’s Balázs Kovács and his co-authors spent years designing a computer-based method to measure “typicality.” In a new study, they found that ChatGPT could duplicate their results at a fraction of the cost.

An illustration of researchers watching a robot write on a blackboard
  • Can We Have Economically Secure Retirements?

    The end of defined-benefit pensions and a volatile stock market have made many Americans skeptical that they can retire comfortably. Is a new model emerging for how we plan for retirement? A panel of experts and practitioners talks about policies to help us bolster our retirement savings.

  • Community Motivation and Subsidies Increase Toilet Use in Developing World

    A combination of community motivation and subsidies targeted to the poor is the most effective way to increase toilet ownership and use, and decrease open defecation, in developing countries, according to a new study published in the journal Science.

  • Rethinking Marketing and Customers: Lessons from Behavioral Economics

    Four experts gave a wide-ranging overview of how insights from behavioral economics are being applied in governments, businesses, and other organizations.

  • Balancing the Letter and the Spirit

    Should organizations favor the dependable efficiency of rules and standards or a less calculated but more flexible operation that bends to accommodate individual situations? How about both?

  • Anxiety and Interest Rates

    In a New York Times op-ed, Professor Robert J. Shiller explores the link between people’s feelings of uncertainty about the future and the unusual dynamics at work in today's economic world.

  • Can Online Reviews Be Trusted?

    The online, user-generated review is a boon for consumers—a chance to sidestep promotional claims and get an honest assessment. But as soon as reviews appeared online, fake reviews followed. A study co-authored by Professor Judith Chevalier looks at the prevalence of fake hotel reviews and tests a hypothesis about who might post them and why.

  • Coworkers Affect Retirement Savings Rates

    Investment companies including Fidelity, Putnam Investments, and Voya Financial are rolling out tools that tell investors how their retirement savings compare to those of their peers. This social comparison is intended to motivate investors to increase their savings; however, new research shows that it can have the opposite effect.

  • Why Do Our Peers’ Financial Decisions Affect Our Own?

    The choices we make—the cars we drive, the neighborhoods we live in, the gyms we join—are influenced by our social networks, the people we surround ourselves with. Our financial choices are no exception. While thousands of studies have examined peer effects, a new study co-authored by Florian Ederer, assistant professor of economics, is the first to clearly identify the two channels of social influence—social learning and social utility—that explain why our peers’ financial decisions affect our own.

    Illustration of several lightbulbs illuminating with dollar signs indicating idea as well
  • Did Culture Cause the Financial Crisis?

    Nobel Laureate Robert J. Shiller says that an event on the magnitude of the 2008-2009 financial crisis has to have many causes, but he sees “the spirit of the times” as a driving force behind many of them. In a lecture at Yale SOM, he described how he sees this spirit acting in everything from Fed policy to the growth in casinos.

  • When a Stock Market Theory Is Contagious

    In a New York Times op-ed, Professor Robert J. Shiller explains that stock market movements are driven by popular narratives that spread like “thought viruses.” Secular stagnation—the idea that the global economy may languish for years to come—is the current story driving down the stock market. Whether true or false, the idea alone has the potential to erase five years of gains and create a bear market.