All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions

A central tenant in economic theory is that in competitive markets, firms should be optimizing. If they aren’t competitive pressures drive them out of business. But what about the NFL?
Two decades ago, UC Berkeley economist David Romer discovered that NFL coaches where not implementing the optimal strategy when deciding whether or not to go for it on fourth down. On this episode, he joins hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen to discuss the implications of his landmark study on fourth down strategy in the NFL.
In this conversation, they discuss what the math reveals about going for it on fourth down. David also chats about why teams were initially slow to take up his findings, and how fourth down strategy has evolved in recent years with the uptick in data analytics staffers in the league.

Find All Else Equal on the web:
https://lauder.wharton.upenn.edu/allelse/
All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions Podcast is a production of the UPenn Wharton Lauder Institute through University FM.

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The leaps and bounds made in AI in just the last three years have surprised even the experts, so hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen thought it might be time for another prophetic conversation about the future of this technology.
Three years after their last conversation about AI with him, Jonathan and Jules sit down with Michal Kosinski, strategy and management professor at the University of Hong Kong. In this interview, they revisit some of their predictions from three years ago, arguing progress in large language models is dramatic but increasingly invisible to users. They also delve into big questions around why AI feels human and whether AI will one day “domesticate” humans.
Listen to our previous conversation with Michal on AI: https://www.professors.fm/episodes/ep27-the-future-of-ai-with-michal-kosinski

Find All Else Equal on the web:
https://lauder.wharton.upenn.edu/allelse/

All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions Podcast is a production of the UPenn Wharton Lauder Institute through University FM.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Much of the literature on how climate change will impact GDP estimates that the economic will be very large. Moreover, the estimates vary widely, with some studies predicting catastrophic economic consequences of global warming. Are those estimates reasonable?
Hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen have written a new paper with Stanford research fellow Cem Kozanoglu called Permanent Climate Change and GDP. In their study, they examine the long-term effects of climate change on economic activity by looking at the effect on individual productivity of choosing to move within the US, and come up with the surprising result that existing estimates may grossly overstate the economic cost of permanent climate change.
On this episode, Jonathan and Jules discuss their research findings, including addressing why current research methods might not accurately measure the effect on GDP of climate change and why internal migration patterns in the U.S. might be a better alternative approach to estimating the economic effect of climate change.

Show Links:
Permanent Climate Change and GDP by Jonathan Berk, Jules H. van Binsbergen, and Cem Kozanoglu


Find All Else Equal on the web:
https://lauder.wharton.upenn.edu/allelse/

All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions Podcast is a production of the UPenn Wharton Lauder Institute through University FM.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

With mounting pressure on the higher education system in the U.S., how can a university’s board of trustees make a difference in combating some of the issues these institutions face?
Hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen are back for a new season of the All Else Equal podcast, and in this episode they identify the major issues universities face today analyze the underlying root causes. They close the episode by explaining how board of trustees be more effective in solving the problems.
Jonathan and Jules go through each level of stakeholder at a university, including their incentives and how those incentives could be in conflict with a university’s core mission. They also list five most questions a board of trustees should ask to shed light on the issues.

Find All Else Equal on the web:
https://lauder.wharton.upenn.edu/allelse/

All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions Podcast is a production of the UPenn Wharton Lauder Institute through University FM.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All Else Equal is taking a short break over the summer and will be revisiting some of our favorite conversations from last season. The show will be back with new episodes soon.
Solicited or not, advice on where to invest your money seems to be around every corner these days. But determining whether the advice is credible and worth listening to can be challenging.
On this episode, hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen put sources of investment advice to the test and provide listeners with some guidance on how to judge the credibility of someone’s stock picks. They also discuss private investing and the potential risk of getting in on the ground floor as an angel investor.

Find All Else Equal on the web:
https://lauder.wharton.upenn.edu/allelse/

All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions Podcast is a production of the UPenn Wharton Lauder Institute through University FM.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.