Jul 06 How ‘gambler’s fallacy’ affects your decision-making By Making Sen$e Editor A bias against deciding the same way in successive situations can affect whether a foreigner is deported, a business gets a loan or a batter strikes out. Continue reading
Jun 06 Did a Norwegian law inadvertently cut innovation in universities? By Making Sen$e Editor When Norway changed its laws to give universities a major share of the profits from their professors' patents and startups, the rate of innovation was halved. Continue reading
May 23 How the economics of urbanization changes between rich and poor nations By Making Sen$e Editor Insights about the economics of cities have been developed largely from studies in the United States and Europe. But do these insights apply with equal force in the developing world, where in coming years the majority of the world's urban… Continue reading
May 13 Minority students get a boost from high-achievement classes By Making Sen$e Editor Participation in a fourth-grade class for the gifted raised reading and math scores of high-achieving black and Hispanic students. Continue reading
Apr 22 An explanation for the rise in CEO pay? Stable option grants By Making Sen$e Editor When a company's stock price is rising, granting the same number of at-the-money stock options every year amounts to increasing compensation. Continue reading
Apr 08 When employers offer training to older workers, women benefit By Making Sen$e Editor German women over 50, who on average are less financially secure than men, are more likely to improve their pay and delay retirement when employers offer training targeted at older workers. Continue reading
Mar 25 Male veterans face declining wealth and work prospects By Making Sen$e Editor Veterans who were in their early 50s in 1992 were better educated, healthier and wealthier than nonveterans of the same age. Yet, by 2010, this pattern had reversed. Continue reading
Mar 18 We’re talking about inequality all wrong By Laurence Kotlikoff, Alan Auerbach The right measure is not how much wealth or income people have or receive, but their spending power after the government has levied taxes on those resources and supplemented those resources with welfare and other benefits. Continue reading
Mar 11 Does science advance one funeral at a time, researchers ask By Making Sen$e Editor When a star scientist dies, outsiders often tackle mainstream questions in the field by leveraging new ideas that arise in other domains. Continue reading
Feb 26 Is the government overestimating the poverty rate? By Making Sen$e Editor Researchers find widespread misreporting and other survey errors that ultimately overstate the incidence of poverty, the degree of income inequality and the number of people falling through the safety net in the United States. Continue reading