Recommendation platforms (e.g., Google News, Netflix, or Amazon) often rely on social learning to improve their recommendations. Namely, they collect information generated from early consumer trials of a product (e.g., likes and reviews) and use it to better guide later consumers. In this process, however, because consumers do not internalize the informational value they generate for others, they often ...

In 2007, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act (FDAAA) required pharmaceutical companies to publicly disclose the entire process of their clinical trials, including trial design, sample size, progress milestones, and final results, covering both successes and failures. This reform made the previously opaque FDA process more transparent, providing peers with unprecedented sources of information....

What drives economic growth during credit expansions — households or firms?The paper “Quantifying the Macroeconomic Impact of Credit Expansions,” co-authored by PHBS Assistant Professor Yicheng Wang, examines this question using evidence from U.S. bank deregulation across states in the 1980s, which lowered borrowing costs and triggered credit expansion.The findings show that the firm channel accounts ...