Economics
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.
Don’t Use COVID-19 as an Excuse to Turn Away Skilled Immigrants
The Trump administration is reportedly planning to limit immigration for skilled workers in order to boost employment for domestic workers. Yale SOM’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld writes that such a move would stifle innovation and even endanger Americans’ health.
Will COVID-19 Force Us to Rethink Our Healthcare System?
Since health insurance is tied to employment in the United States, Americans are losing their insurance just as they need it most. We asked economist Fiona Scott Morton, an expert on the healthcare industry, what a better system would look like.
Contrary to Conventional Wisdom, Margins Don’t Rise as a Company Grows
Nearly every business plan contains the assumption that as the company grows, its average costs will fall and profit margins will rise. But that isn’t borne out by the numbers.
Faculty Viewpoints: The Economic Policy Response
In an online conversation, Yale faculty members discussed the steps already taken to prevent the COVID-19 crisis from turning into economic catastrophe, and the need for more effective healthcare policies.
Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral
Nobel Prize-winning Yale economist Robert Shiller examines how the stories we tell about our lives and our society can spread from person to person, changing shared perceptions of events and shaping economic behavior.
How Should Companies Fuel Word of Mouth?
New research finds that offering a free tier or giving existing customers bonuses for making referrals—or a combination—can be effective, depending on the size of the audience and whether the project has a social aspect.
Faculty Viewpoints: The Macroeconomic Outlook
In an online event hosted by Yale SOM’s Economic Development Club, Peter Schott and Lorenzo Caliendo, both professors of economics at Yale SOM, walked through some of the macroeconomic implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Time to Put on a Mask
A team of Yale researchers says we should all be wearing cloth masks, but give the surgical masks to healthcare workers.
When Corporate Acquisitions Affect Healthcare
Companies often purchase competitors, not to acquire their ideas and products, but to shut them down. A recent report raised questions about whether such an acquisition may be partially responsible for a shortage of ventilators in the United States.
Making Sense of A Record-Breaking Wave of Unemployment Claims
A greater share of Americans filed for unemployment insurance in the week ending March 21 than in any prior week in American history. We asked Yale SOM's Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham for his perspective on this alarming statistic.
