Chicago Booth Review Podcast

Josh Stunkel

The Chicago Booth Review Podcast is the audio companion to CBR's coverage of the latest academic research in business, policy, and markets. Each week we dig into CBR articles and videos to examine a different topic in depth, from inflation to artificial intelligence. Join host and CBR editor-in-chief Hal Weitzman for groundbreaking research, explained in a clear and straightforward way.

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24 episodes
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Avg 25 min
English

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S1 · E183
Wednesday · 27 min
How some "small business" owners profit from politics
People with a net worth at least $5m are heavily overrepresented in politics. That enables them to bend the law to benefit themselves. Many tend to be business owners, and some have used policymaking to make their companies more profitable. How have they done that, and what should we do about it? Welcome to the Chicago Booth Review podcast, where we bring you groundbreaking academic research in a clear and straightforward way. I'm Hal Weitzman, and today, I'm talking with Chicago Booth's Eric Zwick about the book he's written with Owen Zidar, The Everywhere Millionaire: Who Is Really Rich in America and How They Got There. This is our second conversation about the book. If you missed last week's episode, it might be useful to start there. Today, we're looking at how these "Everywhere Millionaires" shape our political system. In some cases, what are touted as "small businesses" turn out to be multibillion dollar enterprises that manipulate the tax code and other policy tools to reap ever-bigger profits.
S1 · E182
September 2 · 28 min
Who are the multi-millionaires among us?
When you think of someone who's rich, who comes to mind? The billionaires of Silicon Valley, AI entrepreneurs or the titans of Wall St? But what about toilet paper and toothbrush manufacturers, chicken processors and burger chain owners? Chicago Booth's Eric Zwick talks about his book, "The Everywhere Millionaire: Who Is Really Rich in America and How They Got There." This is the first of two episodes about the book, which chronicles the rise of a class of mainly business owners with a net worth of at least $5m, and who are typically worth around $25m. How did Zwick discover them? How do they make their money? And what does their emergence as a group tell us about the American dream?
S1 · E181
August 26 · 22 min
Does your brain think accurately about time?
Imagine it's 1 o'clock. Would you rather wait for 30 minutes or until 1:30? They're the same, but research suggests that people tend to feel that 30 minutes will take longer. What does that tell us about how our brains think about time? Chicago Booth's Kristin Donnelly talks about her research on time-duration asymmetry. Why is it that we think differently about waiting times depending on how they're presented?
S1 · E180
August 19 · 27 min
How can we have more meaningful conversations with our kids?
How was school today? What did you have for lunch? Any parent who's asked these questions consistently has probably been met with a single-word response or even just a grunt. How do we make those conversations better? Ariel Kalil of the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy thinks many of us have been thinking wrong about how to encourage parents to talk and read with their children. Do parents just need better conversation starters?
S1 · E179
August 12 · 26 min
How can technical leaders improve their people skills?
The Peter Principle observes that employee tend to rise to their level of incompetence. It's a sarcastic take on corporate culture, but many of us have seen technically brilliant people get promoted into nontechnical roles where they struggle to manage people and teams. Chicago Booth's Christine Carpenter shares her insights on people skills and leadership. Can technical experts become successful people managers? And what are the key skills that can help to promote transparency, innovation and effective communication within teams?
S1 · E178
August 5 · 22 min
Can Anduril disrupt the US defense industry?
For many decades, the Pentagon has bought most of its equipment from five big defense contractors: Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and General Dynamics. Is all that about to change? Chicago Booth's Marc Knez talks about how Anduril, a tech startup, is threatening to disrupt the defense industry. Could it ultimately lead to cheaper and more effective systems for the military?
S1 · E177
July 29 · 27 min
Do better accountants improve productivity?
Do accountants merely measure company activity, or do they actually make it better? Chicago Booth's Mike Minnis talks about his research on auditing and productivity. Do audits make companies perform better, or do effective managers choose to get audited?
S1 · E176
July 22 · 25 min
Why do buses run empty?
Americans use buses and trains much less than their European counterparts. Yet while they sit in their cars, they are subsidizing buses that run mostly empty. Could the system be tweaked to make everyone better off? Chicago Booth's Milena Almagro talks about her research on public transit. Is it possible to make the system more sustainable both financially and environmentally?
S1 · E175
July 14 · 21 min
Will we recover from the "happiness crash"?
Americans' self-reported rates of happiness plummeted during COVID and haven't recovered since. Will they ever? Chicago Booth's Sam Peltzman talks about his research on happiness. Before 2020, Peltzman says, the US was a "reasonably happy country" for nearly 50 years. But in the past six years, everything has changed. So are we in a permanent happiness slump?
S1 · E174
July 8 · 27 min
When should you choose to be ignorant?
Sometimes information is freely available and would be useful, but we choose to avoid it. Why do we do that, and does it make any sense? Chicago Booth's Jane Risen talks about her research on willful ignorance. As small children most of us are permanently curious and never stop asking why, but older children are more likely to avoid certain information. Why is that, and is our ignorance helping or harming us?
S1 · E173
July 1 · 21 min
Why leaders should show vulnerability
Vulnerability is typically perceived as a weakness in professional settings. Chicago Booth's Christine Carpenter wants us to think of it as a strength when it comes to leadership. So when is it appropriate to be vulnerable? And how can you show vulnerability without coming across as out of your depth or incompetent?
S1 · E172
June 24 · 31 min
Will Salesforce and Adobe survive the SaaS Apocalypse?
Software as a Service has boomed in recent decades, but now it faces an existential threat from AI. Chicago Booth's Marc Knez gives us his take on the SaaS Apocalypse. Which companies will survive? Are businesses really going to stop subscribing to software applications housed in the cloud to run their businesses, and what will they do instead?
S1 · E171
June 16 · 24 min
Why the economy is now intangible
The value of the US economy is increasingly accounted for by intangibles – things like intellectual property, brands and customer relationships. How is that changing finance and business? Chicago Booth's Amir Sufi talks to us about the rise of the intangible economy. Should advance economies abandon the idea of reviving manufacturing, and instead continue to chase intangible value?
S1 · E167
June 10 · 30 min
Why is housing so segregated?
Many US cities are highly racially segregated. Explicit segregation is illegal today, but some patterns of settlement haven't fundamentally changed. So why does housing segregation persist? Chicago Booth's Milena Almagro tells us about her research on racial housing covenants. What do the racist housing rules of the 1940s tell us about housing policy today?
S1 · E169
June 3 · 21 min
How do informal markets work?
Much of the world's economy is informal, with transactions taking place in street markets. How does business credit operate in that environment? Chicago Booth's Rimmy Tomy talks about her research on the huge Iewduh bazaar in Shillong, the largest and oldest market in northeast India. Tomy finds that vendors often prefer not to share business metrics with lenders. So how do they get credit?
S1 · E168
May 27 · 24 min
Does replaying videos change how we watch them?
Do you ever find yourself scrolling through videos on your phone? If so, does watching the same video on repeat change the way you think about it? Chicago Booth's Kristin Donnelly talks about her research on the "replay illusion." Why does seeing video of spontaneous events more than once make them seem rehearsed or premeditated?
S1 · E167
May 20 · 25 min
Who Has Time to Be a "Good" Parent?
College-educated mothers spend about 300 more hours a year in intensive childcare than mothers with only a high school diploma, yet they enjoy it less. So what's prompting them to spend so much time with their kids? Ariel Kalil of the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy talks about her research on the parenting time gap. All parents say that childcare is emotionally rewarding, so how can we reduce the gap in how they spend their time?
S1 · E166
May 13 · 20 min
Do you trust your bank?
Do you trust your bank? What would it take for you to lose that trust? Chicago Booth's Rimmy Tomy talks about her research on trust in the financial system. It turns out that you might lose trust in your bank even if it hasn't done anything wrong. So how should banks, regulators and customers think about the role of trust?
S1 · E165
May 6 · 24 min
Will private credit spark a financial crisis?
Private credit is in the news, with Wall St. titans including JP Morgan chief Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs president John Waldron among those expressing concerns about the sector. How worried should we be? Chicago Booth's Amir Sufi about his views on where private credit is going. Many investors want their money back, and some funds are limiting withdrawals. Are the worries justified or overblown?
S1 · E164
April 29 · 25 min
Should we debate less and dialogue more?
We've all been in a conversation in which our goal is to prove ourselves right and someone else wrong. But even if you win the argument, how much is the other person really won over? Chicago Booth's Jane Risen about her research on dialogue and debate. When does it make sense to hear people out rather than explicitly try to win them over, and if you find yourself in a debate, how can you steer the conversation more towards dialogue?

Showing 1–20 of 24 episodes