Research at Chicago (Audio): The University of Chicago

Nudge: A Conversation with the Authors

cmig@listhost.uchicago.edu (Chicago Media Initiatives Group)

Thaler and Sunstein reminisce at their favorite Hyde Park lunch spot, Noodles, where they say they did some of their best work on the book. Noodles was so important to the creative process, it even made the acknowledgments. The two talk about what each brought to the project, the origin of the elephants on the book cover, their fear of forms, and their hopes for a new political consensus in the country.

Nudge: An Overview

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University of Chicago Graduate School of Business Professor Richard Thaler gives an overview of his new book: "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness." He explains what nudges are and gives a few examples of how they can be useful.

Long-Term Consumption: A Microeconomic Approach to Studying Asset Pricing

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A fundamental economic question is the tradeoff between investment and consumption and how it determines asset prices in the macroeconomy. New research studies the relationship between consumption and asset prices using microeconomic data.

Transparency and Political Relationships

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Since the 1990s, foreign capital has become an increasingly important source of financing for emerging market firms. Because companies that access global capital markets receive substantial benefits, it is difficult to understand why so few firms take advantage of foreign capital markets.

The Economics of Pricing: Can Higher Prices Stimulate Product Use?

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The current practice of charging money for life-saving health products in developing countries is a source of controversy among policymakers. Opponents argue that the practice is unfair and that fees will result in goods only reaching the richest of the poor. Advocates of pricing, including non-governmental organizations, argue that free products will not be valued or used. New research suggests charging money for these products could lead to more intensive product use, and thus greater health benefits.

Insider Trading and Future Earnings

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Even though insider trading laws have become stricter over time, insiders are still trading their company's stock and making money from trades. New research examines how insiders limit trading their company's stock for fear of legal repercussions when future earnings reports are likely to become extremely positive or negative.

Discretion Meets Disclosure

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It has long been suspected that fear of competition spurs managers to hide better-than-average business unit profit performance. However, a new study instead finds evidence that fear of increased oversight leads managers to hide less-than-average business unit performance.

Rational Revolutions

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The widespread adoption of new technologies-from the automobile to the internet-tends to be accompanied by stock market booms and busts. Why do the stock prices of innovative firms tend to exhibit apparent "bubbles" during technological revolutions?

Reading the Fine Print

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One of the key questions in corporate finance is how a firm's reliance on external finance affects its investment policy. New research suggests that creditors play a much more direct role in firm investment policy than has been previously recognized.

Collegial Connections

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Mutual fund managers tend to invest more heavily in companies headed by senior officers who attend the same universities as the fund mangers. Futhermore, those investments tend to be more fruitful than their holdings in firms with which they have no connection.

Blowing the Whistle

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New research suggests that the best way to promote fraud detection is to extend the Federal Civic False Claims Act to corporate fraud.

One Bird, One Stone

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How do we choose the means--that is, the actions, objects, or other resources--with which we attempt to achieve our goals? New research suggests that these choices are partly determined by the extent to which available means are only good for the specific goal we hope to accomplish.

Know What I'm Thinking?

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Much of everyday behavior is directed toward understanding, responding to, or attempting to change how we are seen by the people around us. We can be easily led astray, however, by common errors in these perceptions. New research shows us that when we want to better understand how others see us, we should start by changing the way we look at ourselves.

Howard T. Ricketts Laboratory: Overview and Tour

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Olaf Schneewind, M.D., Ph.D, Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology, and Joe Kanabrocki, Ph.D, Biosafety Officer for the Ricketts Biocontainment Laboratory, talk about a new state-of-the-art facility designed to develop new treatments, diagnostic tests and vaccines for emerging infectious diseases. The Howard T. Ricketts Laboratory (HTRL) will house research on microbial agents that are considered either Risk Group 2 (agents that cause mild to moderate symptoms in humans, but are not life threatening) or Risk Group 3 (agents that have the potential to cause lethal human infections, but have at least one effective treatment). The HTRL has been designed and built according to the strictest federal standards and incorporates multiple layers of safety and security to protect laboratory workers and the surrounding environment.

Thai Family Research Project: How entrepreneurship shapes economies

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Robert Townsend, co-director of the Thai Family Research Project, discusses the importance of individual entrepreneurs in shaping local and regional economies and reducing poverty. His findings draw on over 10 years of data collected from nearly 3,000 households throughout Thailand. This research contributed to the creation of The Enterprise Initiative, a new project funded by the John Templeton Foundation which focuses on wealth creation and poverty reduction in developing countries.

Chicago Assyrian Dictionary: The Final Chapter

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Martha Roth, Ph.D., Professor of Assyriology and Dean of Humanities, discusses the final volume of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, a comprehensive lexicon of ancient Akkadian dialects 86 years in the making. Roth has served as Editor-in-Charge of the project for the past 11 years.

The Empathy Switch: How Doctors Regulate Pain Perception

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Jean Decety, Professor, Psychology and Psychiatry, explains his research into pain responses and how physicians learn to turn off the part of the brain that activates feelings of empathy. Decety co-authored "Expertise Modulates the Perception of Pain in Others," published in October 2007, which discusses the necessary ability of a doctor to regulate pain perception in order to better treat patients.

Immigrant Children's Advocacy

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Maria Woltjen, Director of the Immigrant Children's Advocacy Project, describes how she founded a program to provide unaccompanied immigrant children with guardians ad litem. In 2005, nearly 8,000 unaccompanied immigrant children were taken into federal custody and many of these children had to face immigration judges without any legal aid. By working with multilingual law students, The Center pairs advocates with immigrant and refugee children to ensure the child's welfare is represented, not the interests of traffickers or smugglers.

Physics and the Cell: Mysteries of the Cytoskeleton

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Margaret Gardel, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in Physics, is a 2007 recipient of the NIH Director's Pioneer award, along with four others from The University of Chicago. Fundamentally interdisciplinary, Gardel's research straddles both the physical and biological sciences by exploring disease on a molecular level. Gardel explains how the physical structure of cells may yield clues to advanced treatments for cancer and other diseases.

Evolving Brains

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Dr. Bruce Lahn discusses newly discovered variants in two genes, one of which affects brain-size in humans. Because these variants have arisen very recently, studying them may help researchers understand the ongoing evolution of the human brain.