Author: EconLearner

While the presence of bots on Twitter is undeniable, The scale of the problem is difficult to determine. Figuring out whether something was posted by a bot account or a real user can be surprisingly complex.But the presence of bots, no matter how many there are, has significant implications for how all social media content is received, according to a new study by Adam Waitz, professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School. The research, written and led by Shane Schweitzer of Northeastern University and Kyle Dobson of the University of Virginia (both former Kellogg postdocs), finds that partisanship…

After massing tens of thousands of troops along the Ukrainian border for several weeks, Russia invaded the country in an act of war that has been condemned worldwide. Anticipating a backlash, Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised “consequences” for countries that try to intervene.For the US, which has imposed a wave of new sanctions on Russia, that could mean an increase in cyberattacks, according to former National Security Agency director Adm. Michael Rogers, who also served as commander of the United States Cyber ​​Command. He is currently a senior fellow and adjunct professor at the Kellogg School of Management.Rogers spoke…

By Ben Zimmerman, president at SmartMedia Technologies. getty In the wide world of sports, few events rival the tradition and (dare I say) drama of the Major League Baseball playoffs. And nothing gets me going more than the World Series. Legends are born during the Fall Classic as the diamond becomes a stage for players to etch their names into the annals of history. The cracking of the bat, the popping of the catcher’s glove—I could wax poetic for days. But at the end of the day, I would argue that baseball is a lot like the world of marketing…

Take the electric razor. About a century ago, one of the first models—the Vibro-Shave— entered the US market. This razor, which was marketed to both men and women, had a vibrating handle that moved a blade from side to side. And, if you were so inclined, you could replace the top with a massage head to “smooth out” your wrinkles.Needless to say, razors have changed over the years. So how does product development typically happen? Companies have long relied on market research to determine how customers use their products and whether they have underlying needs that a new feature or…

The whiplash has left consumers and businesses wondering: When will prices come back down to earth? And are we headed for a sharp economic downturn?At a recent The Insightful Leader Live event, Kellogg economics professor Sergio Rebelo guided us through various indicators to help diagnose the health of the economy. Here are some highlights from his presentation.Employment has recovered…It took more than six years for the US to recover the jobs lost during the 2008 financial crisis – a painful stretch left on politicians’ minds when Covid struck. “We fell off a cliff and went back employment-wise to the dark…

And while there are many interrelated and complex reasons for this, Benjamin Friedrich, associate professor of strategy at Kellogg, wanted to investigate the role of “marital sorting.” Or, more simply, how much is income inequality affected by who marries whom?He and his colleagues drew on this question because they wondered whether previous studies had underestimated the magnitude of inequality caused by marriage-market matching.Most previous studies have looked at marital classification based on the degree level each person received, such as a high school diploma versus a bachelor’s degree. But one could imagine that the financial prospects of someone with a…

Could be the key word here, because it’s still too early to know how this will play out. However, we have places to turn for clues. After all, this is not the first time that tasks performed by humans have been taken over by machines.”One way to think about artificial intelligence is to continue the process of automation, but to target mental or cognitive tasks that people do as opposed to physical tasks,” says Benjamin Jones, professor of strategy at Kellogg.Drawing of two of his own recent studies on automation, Jones lays out a few different scenarios for how AI…

Life is complicated. People are complicated. Decisions can be made and policies adopted, with the best of intentions, only to fail in (predictably) unpredictable ways.This doesn’t consign humanity to the status quo, of course – but it does suggest that big changes need to be made with some humility and plenty of ongoing monitoring.Here’s a collection of studies from the Kellogg School that demonstrate how good intentions can go awry.Tighter environmental regulations may encourage cheatingTightening emission standards certainly seems like a good way to reduce emissions. But like The infamous Volkswagen emissions scandal is revealedthis is not always the case,…

It is true that the lockdowns under the government’s zero COVID-19 policy were far more draconian and economically damaging than other countries’ containment policies and were imposed for more than a year more in most cases. So it’s no surprise that China’s economic recovery has lagged behind others. By comparison, the U.S youth unemployment rate reached 14.85 percent at the peak of the pandemic in 2020, before falling to 9.57 percent in 2021 and 6.5 percent today. But while most of China’s pandemic-related barriers to employment have been lifted, the fundamental conditions for reducing youth unemployment in China are not…

In May, China reported that youth unemployment (among those aged 16 to 24) had reached a record high 20.8 percent, with the high-paying, high-skilled jobs for which university graduates train to become increasingly scarce. From mid-2021, hundreds of thousands positions have been eliminated in the tech sector due to the COVID-19 pandemic, tight capital and antitrust regulations, and the government’s broader “tech crackdown.” And, as the rapidly changing policy environment adds to the uncertainty, cuts are also coming in other highly skilled areas such as financing.In June, the Chinese internet was flooded with despair photos and messages from new graduates…