Public Policy

Standardization. Harmonization. Coordination. They all sound like good ideas. But in a lecture at Yale SOM, Roberta Romano, the Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School, argued that the convergence of banking regulations brought about by the Basel Accords may have had the unintended effect of fueling the financial crisis.

Robert Shiller proposes government spending that inspires a vision of a better future.

A new study by researchers at the Yale School of Management and the Yale School of Public Health.

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.

One analysis estimated that a smartphone is covered by 250,000 patents. As technology grows increasingly complex, companies must navigate a web of intellectual property protections. Are innovation and competition suffering from the race to create enormous patent portfolios? Professor Stefan Wagner of the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT), a member of the Global Network for Advanced Management, talked with Yale Insights about the consequences of “patent thickets.”

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.

Income and wealth inequality in the U.S. has become a topic of widespread concern and discussion. A recent panel of Yale SOM alumnae posited that action from the federal government is unlikely. But the panelists found reason for hope in examples of the public, private, and nonprofit sectors collaborating to address the nation’s wealth gap.

What’s the best way to manage a secret project—one whose stakes, whether diplomatic or business, are very high? And what do your actions tell your opponents about your true intentions?

Every Election Day, politicians sporting flag pins step into voting booths and come out proclaiming their pride in the democratic process. But take a step back and things don’t look so rosy. Between badly run elections and a new wave of “dark money” entering campaigns, reformers fear that the very nature of our democracy is at risk.

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.