Chicago Booth Review Podcast

Inflation in the US has proved remarkably stubborn. The most recent figures show it fell less than expected in January, to 3.1 percent, well above the Federal Reserve's target rate of 2 percent. In response, the futures markets slashed their expectations that the Fed will lower interest rates any time soon from its current level of 5.25-5.5 percent. The labor market is still relatively tight, and...

We are used to paying different prices for airline tickets, Uber rides, and hotel rooms, but can you imagine a time when all sorts of retailers use data to tailor their marketing and pricing for each individual customer? Does fairness require prices to be equal for everyone, or do certain groups and individuals deserve discounts? In this episode, Chicago Booth's Jean-Pierre Dubé and EngineBI's Jon...

More than 90 percent of business leaders say their organizations use AI to help manage people, money, or both. But how many companies are using AI to develop strategy? In this episode of the Chicago Booth Review podcast, Chicago Booth's Greg Bunch discusses how founders and companies could be making better use of AI to develop, test and operationalize their strategies.

How would you tell one of your direct reports that their work isn't good enough? Especially if that person seems blissfully unaware that they are underperforming? In this episode of the Chicago Booth Review podcast, we're launching a new podcast miniseries, the audio version of our popular Business Practice column, where we asked people to script what they would say in a challenging workplace scen...

Many of us have seen bullying behavior at work. And though we might not like to admit it, many of us have failed to do anything about it. That can reflect the difficult trade-offs that come with calling out bullying: subjecting ourselves and others to scrutiny, completely changing the dynamic between colleagues, and potentially damaging your own career. In this episode, Chicago Booth's John Paul R...

In recent years, there's been a strong push to elevate the use of data in public decision-making by using evidence-based policymaking. Not everyone is enamored of the idea. In a 2019 essay for Chicago Booth Review, Lars Peter Hansen, of Chicago Booth and the University of Chicago, said the notion of evidence-based policymaking was "a misleading portrayal of academic discourse and the advancement o...

What's so scary about uncertainty and ambiguity? Could it be that they're unnerving because they threaten to upend our understanding of the world? And might letting go of your assumptions help you to navigate through uncertain times? In this episode of the Chicago Booth Review podcast, Chicago Booth's Linda Ginzel offers her insights and advice on these critical topics for leaders.

Imagine trying to land a jet on the deck of an aircraft carrier in the middle of a raging storm. That's how Chicago Booth's Raghuram Rajan describes the main task this year for the US Federal Reserve as it attempts a soft landing for the US economy. Is it doable? This episode of the Chicago Booth Review podcast features the second of our two conversations with Rajan about his recent book, Monetary...

How long do you stick to your New Year's resolutions? Why is it so hard to keep them going? How can you make 2024 that exceptional year when you actually keep your New Year's resolutions? In this episode, we get advice from Chicago Booth's Ayelet Fishbach, a professor of behavioral science, and author of the book, Get it Done: Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation.

Streaming services love a good tech startup business story, preferably one featuring a quirky CEO devoid of self-awareness, with an oversized ego and grandiose sense of ambition and purpose, and one finger always resting on the self-destruct button. Hence Super Pumped, the story of Travis Kalanick and Uber, The Dropout, about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, and WeCrashed, the tale of Adam Neumann a...

In response to the COVID pandemic, the normally sober US Federal Reserve cut interest rates, issued forward guidance, resumed quantitative easing, and lent trillions of dollars to Wall St, Main St, states and cities. So is the Fed to blame for causing the inflation of recent years? In this episode of the Chicago Booth Review podcast, Chicago Booth's Raghuram Rajan, former Governor of the Reserve B...

*This episode was originally released with the incorrect audio. We've now updated it with the correct audio.* COVID 19, the rise of AI, and climate change have made the world more unpredictable. So how should we respond to a VUCA world – one characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity? In this episode of the Chicago Booth Review, Hal Weitzman talks to Chicago Booth's Greg Bu...

Are you good at identifying the core essence of things? Clearing your head, rising above the day-to-day, and abstracting things to their critical elements could make you a better leader. In this episode of the Chicago Booth Review Podcast , Chicago Booth's Linda E. Ginzel, a leadership expert and the author of the book Choosing Leadership , reads her essay "To Lead Effectively, Find Your Core Esse...

What makes successful entrepreneurs different from the rest of us? Are they more risk-seeking? Do they have better ideas? Or are they just lucky? How do you know if it's the right time to take the leap into starting a business? What does it really take to launch your own venture? In this episode, we bring you a conversation between three experts on entrepreneurship: Chicago Booth's Lindsey Lyman,...

Women are often appointed as leaders when an organization is in crisis, and in many cases, they're not given the support needed to turn things around—a phenomenon known as the glass cliff. So are women leaders being set up to fail?

One of the byproducts of growing inequality is that many wealthier people grow up, live, and work without ever knowing someone who is poor or struggling financially. Do the wealthy have an obligation to know what life is like for those on the lower end of the income spectrum? In this episode, we hear from John Paul Rollert, an adjunct associate professor at Chicago Booth and our in-house ethicist.

In the perfect world of economic models, investors make perfectly rational decisions using perfect information and earn the best possible returns. They never get distracted or confused. Of course, in real life it doesn't always work that way. Investors can get bamboozled by management drivel, or besotted with charismatic founders. What if we could use AI to make better investment decisions? In thi...

Many of us have observed how social media shapes or warps our behavior. Some people are more willing to get into disagreements or show off more. The rest of us see these behaviors and can assume that that's just how other people behave, even though in reality algorithms may be directing us to the most controversial or explosive content. In this episode, Jeff Cockrell, editor of the Chicago Booth R...

For decades, income inequality has been on the rise around the world. Is that mainly because those at the very top are getting paid more, or are they increasingly passively collecting the income produced by their accumulated wealth? In this episode of the Chicago Booth Review podcast, we ask what makes the rich so rich, with Chicago Booth's Luigi Zingales and Eric Zwick, and the University of Cali...

Ben Baldanza ran Spirit Airlines from 2006 to 2016, and transformed it into a ultra low-cost carrier, abandoning all frills and charging for any extras. In this episode of the Chicago Booth Review podcast, he debates Chicago Booth's John Paul Rollert, one of our adjunct professors, who had just written an article entitled, "A business school professor studies the world's worst airline."

Thanks to the growth of index funds, more and more of us own passive investments. To what extent are we responsible for what goes into those index funds? In this episode of the Chicago Booth Review podcast, Chicago Booth's John Paul Rollert asks if there really is such a thing as a truly "passive" investment.

Regulators have trained their sights on Big Tech companies. Many Americans think Big Tech should be more tightly regulated, and politicians across the aisle agree. But what exactly should be done? In this episode of the Chicago Booth Review podcast, we explore three possible options: break up the biggest companies, regulate them more forcefully, or wait and see.

The Showtime series Super Pumped told the story of the rise of Uber in a swirl of excess and intrigue. But many startups seem to be run by charismatic CEOs with a big vision, which sometimes turns out to be nothing but an illusion fueled by investor cash. In this episode of the Chicago Booth Review podcast, we present a conversation about startup culture with New York Times reporter Mike Isaac, wh...

How does the experience of poverty shape decision-making? Research suggests that, rather than bad decisions leading to poverty, being poor can lead to some poorer decisions. At the same time, research also indicates that the stark financial choices faced by poor people can actually make them better at assessing the trade-offs involved in some decisions. 

Stakeholder capitalism is the idea that business should be about more than just making money. That seems a world away from the brash financial types of Bret Easton Ellis's 1991 novel 'American Psycho,' or the 1987 movie 'Wall Street.' But in this episode of the Chicago Booth Review podcast, Chicago Booth's John Paul Rollert asks how much we have really moved on, and reflects on the continuing rele...