Author: EconLearner

The Ukrainian economy is expected to shrink by one third in 2022. The war has kept people from their homes and their normal jobs, some 13 million civilians have been displaced and 700,000 Ukrainians (mostly young men) have left the workforce to serve in the armed forces. Factories and houses have been destroyed, and the Kyiv School of Economics estimates that Ukraine’s infrastructure losses as a whole 115 billion dollars. Some of these problems will of course be resolved when the war is over, but most will not be. Many of those displaced will be without homes or jobs, and…

For decades, vaccines were the mainstay neglected by the big pharmaceutical companies. Big drugmakers have preferred to focus on drugs like Lipitor—a statin used to lower blood cholesterol—which was first approved in 1997 and has contributed $143 billion to Pfizer’s revenue since 1999. Or Norvasc— a calcium channel blocker that dilates blood vessels and improves blood flow—which has generated more than $50 billion in revenue for Pfizer over the past 20 years. Drugs like Lipitor and Norvasc are so profitable because they are prescribed to patients with a common and chronic condition, and since the drug is protected by patent,…

A couple flirting next to a Christmas tree, December 1955. The female model is Susan Abraham. … [+] Original publication: Housewife Magazine – pub. 1955 (Photo by John French/Getty Images)Getty Images How much should I spend on a holiday gift for my significant other? This is a question for the ages and one of great concern. Most people are deathly afraid of looking cheap if they spend too little or extravagant if they spend too much. How much you should spend on a holiday gift for your significant other can vary greatly depending on your circumstances and the nature of…

Chicago skylineCNCF KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2023, held in Chicago, was a huge success, with more than 10,000 attendees from around the world. The event was packed with exciting keynotes, technical sessions and networking opportunities. Behind the scenes, an open source project from Spotify, is steadily gaining traction in the cloud native ecosystem. The Backstage Developer Portal is an open source platform designed to improve the developer experience and productivity in software development organizations. In 2020, Spotify used the open source project to allow businesses to customize it to their needs. The rise of platform engineering and internal developer…

But a team of Kellogg researchers wondered if this “zero price” strategy could be counterproductive at times. Xiaomeng fanformer Kellogg PhD student now at ShanghaiTech University and former visiting scholar Fengyan Cindy Cai, had observed the opposite in their native China. For example, in many Chinese cities, elderly residents can get free flu shots, but Fan knew that many of them opted for non-free shots.So the two teamed up with marketing professor Kellogg Galen Bodenhausen explore how zero pricing can actually work against a company sometimes. They found that there are, indeed, times when people would rather pay a small…

But in reality, changing prices often incurs other costs. These are called “menu costs,” a reference to restaurants having to reprint all their menus when they reprice food. Menu costs can take different forms depending on the industry—for example, a grocery store has to relabel products, while gas station attendants have to use a pole to update the numbers on the outside sign. Service companies also run the risk of upsetting customers and losing business if they constantly adjust their fees, a different (but important) type of cost.It stands to reason that lower menu costs should be good for companies,…

Where does productivity tracking go wrong?Despite the benefits of productivity tracking, in practice, things often go wrong. One of the biggest reasons lies in how difficult it is to define, measure and incentivize productivity for more complex tasks.Rahman: Goodhart’s Law states that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. So if you start measuring something – and do it badly – people will game the system.HUBBARD: This is the oldest problem in motivation theory. You see sellers increase their sales to reach percentages. You see teachers teaching to the test. You have the folly…

In an age of social distancing, it’s a constant question. And, unfortunately, opinions differ. The impatient customer behind you in the grocery line may have no problem breaching your sacred six-foot bubble, for example.But even for reasons that have nothing to do with the pandemic, we often disagree about how close we want to be to each other. Just ask the introvert who hides from an extroverted roommate or the parent who craves a moment alone from the child who just wants to cuddle.To Alvaro Sandroni, professor of managerial economics and decision science at the Kellogg School, these riddles bring…

But what happens to a core discipline without an applied counterpart? Social science aims to investigate how people and societies behave. But who uses its basic principles to understand and solve the many problems that organizations and societies face? And is this essentially a problem for the sector?Contractor Noshirprofessor of behavioral sciences at the McCormick School of Engineering, as well as professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School and of communication studies at the School of Communication at Northwestern, recently sat down with Duncan Watts, a principal researcher at Microsoft and an expert on how social influence spreads…

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – SEPTEMBER 2, 2019: A skyscraper in Nashville, Tennessee, housing WeWork … [+] cooperation offices. (Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images)Getty Images WeWork seemed like the dream startup. At first glance. Founder Adam Neumann’s company took a stifling sector—commercial property—and redesigned it for a new generation. He anticipated the desire for more collaborative work, especially among young creatives, and gave them what they wanted. WeWork rented office space, turned it into a fun, lively co-working environment with free coffee and beer, and then rented it out to individuals and small businesses for a profit. At least that was the…