Is Online Dating Destined to Fail?
The article “Love Stinks: An Economic Manifesto” coins online dating as a market with asymmetric information, much like the “lemon market” of used cars. The author takes a very pessimistic view about one’s chance of finding a compatible mate, especially online. In real life, they comment that finding someone of a similar age, education, attractiveness, […]
Applications of Bayes Rule
A theorem that was crafted over 150 years ago still has important mathematical implications in today’s problems. Bayes Rule is helpful in observing the significance of some event within the context of prior events. We’re used to applying Bayes Rule to simple probability questions that we’d normally see in class, yet the applications are real. […]
Information Cascades in Equity Crowdfunding
Source: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/etap.12261 Economists have long observed the effects of information cascades on the stock market in financial markets. However, in the face of financial downturn, many companies have turned to online crowdfunding as an alternative to growing their business. In the past few years, the popularity of crowdfunding has dramatically increased, especially with the […]
Pandemics Board Game Strategy Using PageRank and Degree
Pandemic The Board Game Pandemic is a cooperative board game designed by Matt Leacock and published by Z-Man Games in 2008. Pandemic is based on the premise that four diseases have broken out in the world, each threatening to wipe out a region. The game consists of a board in which the world map is drawn on it, with various cities marked out, and a network […]
Using online social networks to create an information cascade model
Source: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physa.2017.08.078 Information cascade models over the decades have evolved from traditional epidemic spreading models. As a result, several variations of rumor-spreading models based on unique propagation mechanisms (ex. remembering, forgetting, and stifling mechanisms) have been developed. While these models accurately depict the spread of rumors in basic social networks, they fail to capture the […]
Tech giants offer empty apologies because their users can’t quit
Tech giants offer empty apologies because users can’t quit Monopolization and concentration of power within specific industries has gained notable attention recently, particularly as it pertains to placing blame and expecting response from tech companies on the topic of consumers’ addiction to their products. Antitrust laws and other political initiatives aim to prevent any one […]
Information Cascade in Infancy
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3525805/ https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/052715/guide-understanding-information-cascades.asp There are several applications of the information cascade in the real world and one of such examples starts in our infancy. When we are babies and just learning about the world, we begin to do what we see others doing. For instance, as our cognitive and physical abilities develop, we begin to imitate […]
Global Technology Diffusion, the Concerns, and Potential Consequences
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/01/26/in-boardroom-robot-gets-a-seat-at-the-table/?utm_term=.6f727b99e02f Chief executive of the software company Salesforce Marc Benioff is known to consult a robot called Einstein during senior-level meetings. At the time of this article, Benioff himself told members gathered at a conference in Davos, Switzerland that he indeed consults with this robot in order to find potential flaws in his employees’ decisions. […]
The New Laws of Explosive Networks
In class, we discussed the topics on information cascades and network diffusion. Specifically, regarding network diffusion, we looked at how certain threshold values for accepting some brand, idea, or item were necessary to allow complete cascades throughout the network. In “The New Laws of Explosive Networks”, Jennifer Ouellette discusses how complex networks can explode with […]
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