Top marketing executives discuss big data and how today’s companies are using all of the information they’re collecting about customers.

Professor Ravi Dhar runs through how recent research in psychology helps explain how we all make decisions when shopping. When are you impulsive? When do you really think things through? When do you make the good long-term choice? And when do you go for the junk food?

Increasingly, a bank is a virtual entity rather than the imposing edifice downtown. Amy Brady, the chief information officer of Cleveland-based Key Bank, talks about the impact of technology on banking.

In a New York Times op-ed, Professor Robert Shiller writes that President Obama’s proposal to change how inflation is measured in Social Security benefit calculations “…solves the wrong problem, and, in doing so, undermines the integrity of the Social Security system.” One alternative, suggests Shiller, is to link retirees’ benefits to GDP per capita, in current dollars, which would align the interests of the retired with those of society as a whole.

John Shrewsberry, the president of Wells Fargo Securities, outlines how government regulation and the ongoing tight credit environment are affecting the banking industry—and how big banks can keep up with the rapid pace of change today.

Liang Meng, who founded a private equity firm after leading D.E. Shaw’s China operations, gives an overview of the fast-developing private equity market in China. He describes how demographic trends inform his investment strategy.

More and more, the answer is yes, as the credit card industry reaches billions of consumers and tens of millions of outlets. The CMO of MasterCard WorldWide talks about the company’s efforts to compete in this global market while responding to radically different technological infrastructures, legal institutions, and cultural understandings of debt.

The omnipresent smartphone has the potential to change the entire shopping experience.

Guilt may be a key mechanism for enhancing pleasure, according to new research co-authored by Professor Ravi Dhar.

How does a manufacturing company in Baltimore thrive selling steel around the world? Titan Steel Corporation keeps manufacturing jobs in the U.S. by continually adapting to shifting suppliers and customers as macro trends and exchange-rate shifts alter the global competitive landscape.