The China Cloud Overhead
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/653098 https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-02-06/us-trained-scientist-was-deported-then-became-father-chinese-rocketry The above essay, written by a professor in department of history of California State Polytechnic University, examines the experiences of American-trained Chinese scientists and scholars in America during the Cold War and McCarthyism. Chinese scholars in America during the time was transforming the technological landscapes of their foster land, yet was heavily influenced […]
Movies as Information Cascades
http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/05/media/thor-ragnarok-box-office/index.html Everyone loves going to the movies. It is a fun and entertaining activity for people to do with friends and family. However, it is a difficult decision for people to make as to which movie to see. The end decision people make can be explained by an information cascade. Movies as information […]
The Importance of Strong Ties in Social Activism
Malcom Gladwell’s article “Small Change” is about the way social media has effected social justice movements and rallies worldwide. Galdwell explains how he believes that despite the recent claims of social media “reinventing” social activism, it really has no effect on the participation rates of activists. To show this, he traces the spread of the […]
The Rich-Get-Richer Phenomenon in Today’s Richest Cities
Link: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/richard-florida-winner-take-all-new-urban-crisis/522630/ This article describes the dynamic of the “Rich-get-Richer” in terms of wealthy cities, such as New York, San Francisco, etc. These cities act as nuclei, where the best of the best come together and centralize in one place. Different cities may act as hubs for different industries; for example, finance prospers in […]
Data Analytics in the Space Industry
We are more than a half century into the space age, and as rocket launches get cheaper and cheaper, satellites are being put into orbit at high rates as more companies can afford to do so. As these machines get smaller, they also get more advanced, and the large number of satellites above the atmosphere […]
Continuous Cascading Process
In this blog, I focus on how an individual’s choices depend on what other people do—using probabilities to model individual’s preference, rather than giving a discrete label as in the traditional cascading model of our book. In the traditional cascading model, one of the solution to make a complete cascade is to decrease the threshold […]
Fidget Spinner Craze: Explained by Network Effects
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2017/05/16/fidget-spinners-how-they-went-being-toy-help-autistic-kids-being-national-phenom/101742758/ The article by USA Today was written back in May, when fidget spinners (little toys that one could spin around their finger to supposedly help with fidgeting) were extremely popular all over the country. Most people learned about fidget spinners because nearly everyone was talking about them at one point. They were such a […]
Network Effects and the Courage of Reporting Sexual Misconduct
There has been a deluge of women reporting cases of sexual misconduct, far more in recent memory than over the last few years. Rather than mere coincidence, this can be attributed to the network cascade effects we have discussed in class. It takes an immense amount of courage to report sexual misconduct – having to […]
Network effects fuel the rise of Venmo
“Just venmo me.” We’ve all heard it, we’ve all said it. Venmo has become one of the most popular forms of payment, with network effects a key factor for their rise. I personally tried to stay off Venmo for as long as possible; the idea of someone getting ahold of my phone and making random […]
Information Cascades in Real Estate
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/business/02view.html This article from The New York Times investigates the recent housing bubble in the United States. The writer attempts to explain why rational people were pursuing the potential of grand returns on investment without properly considering the risks. He claims through the analysis of various economists that information cascades can lead people astray […]
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