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Paul Volcker Was a Remarkable Public Servant - By Mervyn King
With the passing of Paul Volcker, a true public servant has departed. Mentor and role model to so many, Paul exhibited wisdom and longevity in equal measure. His contributions to central banking, and economic policy-making more generally, were truly extraordinary.
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The Business of AI Startups - By Robert Seamans
In “The Business of AI Startups,” the co-authors administered a survey and collected responses from 179 AI firms and machine learning companies to explore the effects that AI had on their own businesses and their customers.
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The Impact of Dynamic Status Changes Within Competitive Rank-Ordered Hierarchies - By Nathan Pettit
“Believing is seeing” for people with high status, and because they expect the world to respond favorably to them, they perceive that it does, say NYU Stern Assistant Professor of Management Nathan Pettit and his co-author Nino Sivanathan of London Business School in “The Eyes and Ears of Status: How Status Colors Perceptual Judgment” (to be published in the May issue of the Personality and Social Psychology Journal).
—— Research Highlights
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The Artificial Intelligence Frontier of Economic Theory - By Thomas Sargent
Until recently, two big impediments limited what research economists could learn about the world with the powerful methods that mathematicians and statisticians, starting in the early 19th century, developed to recognize and interpret patterns in noisy data: Data sets were small and costly, and computers were slow and expensive. So it is natural that as gains in computing power have dramatically reduced these impediments, economists have rushed to use big data and artificial intelligence to help them spot patterns in all sorts of activities and outcomes.
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The Dark Psychology of Social Networks - By Jonathan Haidt
Suppose that the biblical story of Creation were true: God created the universe in six days, including all the laws of physics and all the physical constants that apply throughout the universe. Now imagine that one day, in the early 21st century, God became bored and, just for fun, doubled the gravitational constant. What would it be like to live through such a change? We’d all be pulled toward the floor; many buildings would collapse; birds would fall from the sky; the Earth would move closer to the sun, reestablishing orbit in a far hotter zone.
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Solving for Opportunities and Impact - By Tensie Whelan
Investment professionals are gearing up: unlike most baby boomers, millennials and Gen Z want their investments to be aligned with their sustainability preferences and they expect to see the impact. What is more, they expect to make investment decisions conveniently and digitally.
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The Consumption Response to Trade Shocks: Evidence from the US-China Trade War - By Michael Waugh
Recent research by NYU Stern Professor Michael Waugh provides new evidence on the consumption effects of trade shocks, finding that Chinese retaliation is leading to welfare losses. Communities most exposed to the Chinese retaliatory tariffs have experienced gross declines in consumption growth and employment, the research notes.
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Nine Reasons why the Stock Markets Are Far Too Optimistic - By Nouriel Roubini
This past May and August, escalations in the trade and technology conflict between the US and China rattled stock markets and pushed bond yields to historic lows. But that was then: since then, financial markets have once again become giddy. US and other equities are trending towards new highs, and there is even talk of a potential “melt-up” in equity values. The financial-market buzz has seized on the possibility of a “reflation trade”, in the hope that the recent global slowdown will be followed in 2020 by accelerating growth and firmer inflation (which helps profits and risky assets).
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The US-China Trade War Is Harming Communities in the US - By Michael Waugh
Trade creates winners and losers. In the context of the US-China trade war – the unprecedented tit-for-tat increase in tariffs by the US and China – this maxim suggests that changes in US and Chinese trade policy will redistribute the gains from trade. I argue that empirical evidence supports the theory – the trade war is inducing concentrated losses in consumption and employment for communities in the US that are the most exposed to Chinese retaliatory tariffs.
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How To Generate Real News In Divided Societies - By Michael Posner
This past weekend several dozen journalists and activists from around the world convened in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Under the auspices of an organization called the Social Change Initiative, on whose board I sit, they came together to discuss the crisis facing news gathering and dissemination in deeply divided societies. All of our societies seem deeply divided these days, and the declining role of newspapers as messengers of truth is an important factor. As in the U.S., newspapers in the UK and Ireland are struggling financially, upended by the disruption of an advertising model that is no longer sustainable. And as the news media decline around the world, online platforms take their place with few, if any, of the important journalistic checks to ensure truth.
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Monopolies Cost Americans $300 a Month. We're No Longer the Land of Free Markets - By Thomas Philippon
When I landed in Boston in 1999, the United States was the land of free markets. Many goods and services were cheaper here than in Europe. Twenty years later, American free markets are becoming a myth. Internet service, cellphone plans, and plane tickets are now cheaper in Europe and Asia than in the US. In 2018, the average monthly cost of a broadband internet connection was $31 in France, $39 in the UK and $68 in the US. American households also spend twice as much on cellphone services as households in France or the UK.
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Does Fashion Have a Conscience? - By Tensie Whelan
So you need a little retail therapy. Time for a new suit, dress or leather jacket? Want to make your fashion a conversation starter?
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Will AI Stimulate The Cooling Economy? Not Any Time Soon - By Robert Seamans
Today’s economic growth numbers were underwhelming. Many economists predict that our economy will continue to grow throughout 2019, but that this economic growth will be at a lower rate than it was in 2018. Artificial intelligence will likely help boost economic growth in the long run, but will have little to no effect on economic growth over the next few years.
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When Recession Comes, Expect Central Banks to Rewrite the Rules - By Nouriel Roubini
A cloud of gloom hovered over the International Monetary Fund’s annual meeting this month. With the global economy experiencing a synchronised slowdown, any number of tail risks could bring on an outright recession. Among other things, investors and economic policymakers must worry about a renewed escalation in the Sino-American trade and technology war. A military conflict between the US and Iran would be felt globally. The same could be true of “hard” Brexit by the UK or a collision between the IMF and Argentina’s incoming Peronist government.
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Which Wealth Tax? - By A. Michael Spence
Proposals for a broad tax on wealth are not new, but they are receiving renewed attention in the United States. Steadily increasing income and wealth inequality has raised social and ethical concerns, even among a subset of the wealthy. This trend, along with declining social mobility, is contributing to political polarization, which in turn leads to poor and erratic policy choices. And we know from history that rising inequality and intensifying social and political polarization can lead to more dramatic and even violent outcomes.
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