To many economists and policymakers, cash is a problem: cash transactions are harder to tax, it can be used by criminals, and those who keep their savings in it miss out on interest. Such concerns have driven recent arguments for demonetization, including a 2016 effort in India to remove some…
This commentary originally appeared in Time. The American democratic system worked even though the American Democratic party failed. Donald Trump was decisively reelected president by the largest popular vote and the most demographically diverse voting base in history without allegations of foreign election interference or domestic voting fraud. Kamala Harris…
Q: Blood transfusions are so commonplace they don’t get much attention. Would you give some context on the importance of transfusions and the business of the blood supply? It is just expected that blood will be available for transfusion. Whether it’s cancer treatment, maternal postpartum hemorrhage, sickle cell, transplant surgery,…
Learning through experience is dynamic, not static. As you’ll hear in this episode with artist Kim Weston, her photography is a way of deepening understanding of ourselves and the world around us, seen and unseen. Through compelling story and image, Kim takes us on a journey where each photograph tells…
This commentary was adapted from episode 147 of the Health & Veritas podcast. Subscribe for weekly doses of expert insight on health and the healthcare industry. For most of the 21st century, there have been 10,000 to 50,000 pertussis cases every year in the U.S. Pertussis, also known as whooping…
Political and business media, pundits, and experts continue to cite prediction market odds as a credible forecast for the upcoming presidential election, regularly pointing to betting odds on prediction markets such as Polymarket, Kalshi, PredictIt, and Interactive Brokers as a guide to who is up and down in the horse…
If you’ve ever been bothered by the feeling that your friends have more robust social lives than you do, you’re not alone. Lots of people feel that way, and, mostly, they—and you—are right. For decades, social scientists have recognized what’s known as the friendship paradox, which says that on average,…
It is difficult to find any similarities between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in this heated electoral race. But there is one area in which there is a surprising amount of agreement: the need for the federal government to play an active role in encouraging investment in U.S. manufacturing. This…
This commentary originally appeared in Time. Just as the elimination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah a month ago catalyzed new opportunities for Mideast peace, the death of long-elusive Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar Thursday turbocharges the transformation of the Middle East towards a more secure and prosperous future. To appreciate the…
Learning through experience requires us to shift from the purely intellectual to a more holistic engagement. I try to create that shift by opening each of my leadership classes with some form of art—a poem, a piece of music or a visual work. It’s a way of helping my students,…
Let’s say that two entrepreneurs, a man and a woman, co-found a startup and raise venture capital. But the business struggles, and they shut it down and go their separate ways. Eventually, each of them independently forms a new business. Do these entrepreneurs have the same chance of getting venture…
Conservatives often say that social media platforms are biased against their point of view. What did your research into the 2020 election find about whether that was true? Our research found that accounts sharing pro-Trump or conservative hashtags were suspended at a significantly higher rate than those sharing pro-Biden or…
Current Topics menu All Topics menu Departments menu Collection No. 9 Two decades into the era of private space flight, companies are establishing ventures in low-earth orbit, sending private citizens into space, and pursuing exploration and development on the moon and beyond. We talked to Yale alumni and other leaders…
The brewing proxy fight between activist Starboard Value and pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has already taken a hostile turn. Anonymous sources have been disparagingly suggesting that Pfizer CEO Dr. Albert Bourla should be removed. After news reports suggested they initially sided with the activists, former Pfizer CEO Ian Read and former…
As we transition from “The Great Resignation” of 2022 to what might be called “The Great Layoff” of 2024, many companies are grappling with the challenge of reducing their workforce. While no layoff process can fully eliminate the associated pain, there are strategies to handle it with greater compassion and…
This commentary was adapted from episode 145 of the Health & Veritas podcast. Trachoma is a disease I am certain I learned about in medical school and probably forgot sometime after I took part three of my boards in 1990. Why? Because it doesn’t occur in the United States—or at…
Q: What is space law right now and what developments can we anticipate? Space law is a very underdeveloped field of international law. That’s understandable because until recently, activities in space were quite limited and primarily state led. The boom in commercial space companies and the plans by a number…
Q: What questions have guided your career? The question I began with was, “What drives inequality in society?” Early projects led me to believe that the way organizations structure themselves and manage their employment relationships has a significant impact on why some people get ahead and some people don’t. At…
How do different emotions impact everyday life? And what are the kinds of experiences we want and need—in the classroom, at work, and in our own developmental trajectories—to be able to deepen our emotional wisdom so we can make better decisions and have healthier relationships? In this episode of Learning…
Harlan Krumholz: Welcome to Health & Veritas. I’m Harlan Krumholz. Howard Forman: And I’m Howie Forman. We’re physicians and professors at Yale University. We’re trying to get closer to the truth about health and healthcare. This is a very, very special episode. It’s our nation’s surgeon general—and our alum—joining us…
Following her latest economic policy speech, Vice President Kamala Harris and Stephanie Ruhle discussed Harris’s economic plan, including her controversial pledge to pass a new federal law against price gouging. When pressed on how this matches her belief in the capitalist system, the vice president responded, “I am never going…
In July, student protests in Bangladesh grew violent when the country’s longtime and increasingly autocratic prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, initiated an aggressive crackdown that killed hundreds of demonstrators. This brutality caused what had started as discontent about unemployment among the country’s most educated young people to bloom into a wider…
Harlan Krumholz: Howie, it’s great to see you, and welcome to Health & Veritas. Howard Forman: You’re Harlan Krumholz. Harlan Krumholz: And you’re Howie Forman. And we’re sitting together today. Howard Forman: Exactly. We’re in the studio. We’re physicians and professors at Yale University. We’re trying to get closer to…
This commentary was adapted from episode 142 of the Health & Veritas podcast. Polio is back in the news, again. Over two years ago, we talked about a serious polio threat in the New York area, when one person developed paralytic poliomyelitis and wastewater detected the virus in several adjoining…
At our Yale CEO Caucus last week, we surveyed approximately 60 top CEOs in attendance on a broad range of economic issues. While our anonymous straw poll was informal and unscientific, the results suggest that CEOs are increasingly and broadly optimistic about the economy—in fact, much more bullish than just…
As a young finance scholar, one of the first topics Professor James Choi tackled was how automatic enrollment in retirement plans affects Americans’ saving. Two decades ago, putting employees into a 401(k) by default, rather than requiring them to proactively opt in, was a novel idea. Choi and his collaborators…
This commentary was adapted from episode 141 of the Health & Veritas podcast. H5N1 remains a major public health story, even if the press rarely covers it. We have had a concerning outbreak of H5N1 bird flu, also known as highly pathogenic avian influenza, since early this year. When I…
How can we overcome change and learn to create a better experience at work—for ourselves and our teams? To launch us into Season Three of Learning Through Experience, my first guest explores with me the pedagogy of hope and transformation, focusing on interpersonal and group dynamics. As Dr. Lisa Lahey…
Welcome to a new season of Learning Through Experience! This season will echo the cadence and pedagogy of one of my popular courses here at Yale. My conversations are with brilliant guests who help us think about how we learn through interpersonal and group dynamics. This podcast is not just…
Howie and Harlan are joined by Ania Jastreboff, a Yale endocrinologist and an expert on obesity medication, to talk about the remarkable range of diseases treated by drugs like Ozempic, Mounjaro, and Wegovy. Harlan discusses new Apple devices with the ability to detect sleep apnea and aid in hearing; Howie…
There’s a reason charity advertisements often revolve around a specific person: an upsetting picture or story is more likely to elicit donations than are statistics or depictions of a group’s collective plight. Psychologists refer to our tendency to open our hearts and wallets wider for specific people than we do…
This commentary originally appeared in Fortune. The news that the International Monetary Fund will become the first major international financial body to officially return to Russia since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 underscores the systemic pro-authoritarian impulses of the IMF and its tolerance to blunt violations of international…
Harlan Krumholz: Howie, we’re back. Welcome to Health & Veritas. I’m Harlan Krumholz. Howard Forman: And I’m Howie Forman. We’re physicians and professors at Yale University, and we’re trying to get closer to the truth about health and healthcare. Our guest today is Dr. Margaret, or Peg, McGovern, but first…
For decades, the Business Roundtable, a professional association and lobbying organization formed by CEOs from many of the largest companies in the United States, asserted that companies exist to create value for shareholders. So, it was noteworthy when, in 2019, the leaders of 181 companies signed onto the organization’s revised…
Joan Tabachnick ’86 has worked in the field of child sexual abuse prevention for more than 30 years and developed widely used educational tools and programs. She serves on the advisory council of Stop It Now, and recently retired as the executive director of MASOC—the Massachusetts Society for a World…
This commentary originally appeared in Fortune. Writing in the journal Public Opinion 1951, Yale researchers Carl Hovland and Walter Weiss labeled their postwar studies on the trick of persuasive messaging regardless of the truth as “the sleeper effect.” They found that a message lingers through repetition, even if factually unfounded.…
How bad is housing affordability in the U.S.? Is it actually a crisis? There are many ways to define housing affordability, but common indicators point to much higher costs of both owning and renting than what we have seen since pre-COVID times. Average home prices grew more than twice as…
Q: How do workplaces navigate this moment of intense, divided politics? It may be wise to pay attention to, “What do we want to create?” We may be better off focusing on how we talk to each other rather than what we say. A little bit less about content and…
The Fed is expected to cut interest rates in September. What does your research say about whether borrowers should wait to take out a loan? Our research shows that many people make the mistake of waiting to take out a mortgage or other long-term loan if the Fed is expected…
This commentary originally appeared in Fortune. As presidential campaigns race to the close, the electorate moves past gauzy themes and adversarial finger-pointing, which tell us little about candidates’ plans, to examine differences in goals and policies. Previously, we analyzed the paradoxical positions of Donald Trump’s pro-business, laissez-faire, global burden-sharing presumptions—and…