Information Cascade and 2011 Netflix Stock
One of the most common observances of information cascades can be seen right in the stock markets. Information cascades can either be good or bad, but unfortunately for Netflix in 2011, information cascade was terrifying. In September 2011, Netflix raised the subscriber price due to pressures from studios and their licenses and competition with other […]
Corrupted blood incident—a not-so-virtual epidemic in a virtual world
On the week before the thanksgiving break we learned about epidemics—the model of the spread of diseases, and estimates of who/how many people would be infected at a given time in a given graph. While we have a lot of plausible models for explaining and estimating what might happen in an epidemic, it is hard […]
Fake News in the Modern Age
Although there have been many reported cases of fake news in the past, there has never been a time in history where fake news has been so rife within our everyday media. While it may not seem like a serious issue, it in fact effects every one of us greatly, by changing our attitudes and […]
Social Media’s Negative Effects On Information Cascades
The rapid and easy access to information via social networks enables users to know about the latest breaking news story within seconds from their Facebook friends or Twitter followers. Unfortunately, it is very easy for information to be misinterpreted and then spread as rumors. For example, during the 2015 terrorist attacks on Paris, many people […]
Network effects and the Iphone 7: Perceived Demand
The IPhone 7 and 7 plus were released on September 16th, 2016, around the same time as previous iPhones. Much like its predecessors, the iPhone 7 saw high demand in the first few weeks, comparable to that of the iPhone 6. Stores ran out of stock in many areas of the world, and prospects looked […]
Health Insurance and Markets for Lemons
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/upshot/why-keeping-only-the-popular-parts-of-obamacare-wont-work.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fupshot&action=click&contentCollection=upshot®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=38&pgtype=sectionfront President-elect, Donald Trump has not had kind words for the Obama Administration’s signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act. He has vowed to repeal it and replace it, but he also said he would like to save one of the most popular parts of the law, the part that forbids insurers from declining to sell […]
Information Cascade of Fake News
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/media/how-fake-news-spreads.html?_r=0 Information cascade was a topic taught during class in which information, especially fake information can easily be passed along to others through various means of social media. Most of the fake information is re-shared and never fact checked and easily propagates amongst social media users, in turn, promoting fake news. In this scenario, one […]
Information Cascade in Politics
Information cascade happens everywhere. Even in politics. Chris Ellis and John Fender, economics professors from the University of Oregon and the University of Birmingham, relate the idea of information cascade with the occurrence of threat of revolution. Especially, they developed a theory of political regime change brought about by the threat of revolution. From the […]
Death of MSN and the Growth of Other Instant Messaging Platforms
A few of you might remember MSN, a popular instant messaging platform by Microsoft launched in 1999. It was not quite popular in the US as it was in a lot of other countries. I remember MSN being a big part of my middle school career; I would come home and get on MSN immediately […]
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