Scientific American reporter Simon Makin writes that MIT researchers have developed a new approach to extract correct answers from a crowd. “The new method performed better than majority or confidence-based methods alone, reducing errors by between 21 and 35 percent,” Makin explains.
Jericka Duncan of CBS Evening News speaks with Prof. Antoinette Schoar about her research investigating how credit card companies target consumers based, in part, on their level of education. “Customers who are more educated and financially more sophisticated receive very different credit terms,” she explains.
Prof. Antoinette Schoar writes for The Wall Street Journal about her research examining how credit card companies are using customer data to target specific consumers. Schoar writes that “as more and more personal data becomes available, businesses are now able to target customers in a personalized and sophisticated way.”
A study co-authored by Prof. Karen Zheng examines how fear that items will go out of stock can motivate shoppers to pay full price, increasing stores’ profits, reports CNBC reporter Susie Poppick. “It turns out people tend to believe certain products will be sold faster or sooner than they actually are,” explains Zheng.
Wall Street Journal reporter Brenda Cronin writes that MIT researchers have identified a group of consumers that routinely buy products that fail. “You’ve got to think about who’s buying” the product, explains Prof. Duncan Simester. “If it’s these harbingers buying them….and if they keep buying them…then you’ve got a problem.”
CNBC’s John Schoen writes that MIT researchers have identified a group of consumers that repeatedly buy unpopular products. "You might have thought this was a category-specific effect — someone who buys the wrong makeup," explains Prof. Catherine Tucker. "But the strongest effects were going across category.”
MIT researchers have found that certain consumers are more prone to buying products that end up failing, reports Peter Coy for Bloomberg Business. “It's not just that certain people try out new products that turn out to be unsuccessful,” writes Coy. “It's that they keep going back for more of them.”
Financial Times reporter John Authers highlights Prof. Andrew Lo’s work examining how human aversion to risk impacts financial decisions. Lo’s research provides evidence that “investors in markets will take risk-averse actions rather than the purely rational decisions that economists have classically assumed."