How Information Cascades Effect the Iowa Caucus and Presidential Nominations
The Iowa Caucus for the presidential race in the US has been a long-standing tradition that carries an additional weight – the winners of the caucus are likely to remain in good standing for the remainder of the primaries. In the past, the Iowa caucus results have become increasingly reflective of the future winner of […]
Network Effect and Apple iMessage
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ugh-green-bubbles-apples-imessage-makes-switching-to-android-hard-1539867600 In today’s messaging society, we are split in two groups – blue bubbles and green bubbles. This phenomenon started when the iPhone recognized whether or not another user was an iPhone user by showing their messages in a blue text bubble. This is because when you message iPhone to iPhone, you are using Apple’s […]
Information Cascades in Social Media Within Our Daily Lives
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/health/social-media-fake-news.html Information cascades are a phenomenon when information that people are not sure is necessarily true is passed down based off of what other people say or do before them. This is the inference of knowledge based off of what others before them have done or have decided to make a rational decision using […]
Social Media Cascades
The rise of social media has also seen a great increase in the spread of news among users, and in the past two years this has started to pose some degree of public harm. Social media allows us to quickly and easily both read about current events the instant they occur as well as share […]
Information Cascades: How Russians Election Meddling Changed A Nation
An information cascade is defined as when there is a rational reason for an someone to copy the decision of another, even though their own information purports that they should make another decision. This happens sequentially, when later people make decisions based on information assumed from earlier peoples’ decisions. A cascade is created when people […]
For the people to have their say on Brexit, how best can the multi-option conundrum be resolved?
In this article, Peter Emerson discusses the merit of First-Past-the-Post and majority-rules voting, specifically when compared to a Modified Borda Count (MBC) system. Emerson discusses how in previous ballot elections (Kosovan independence in 1991, Northern Irish border in 1973, and Iranian government structure in 1979) the votes appeared to be nearly unanimous, mostly due to […]
Network Effects ≠ Startup Success
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/all-platforms-are-not-equal/ It’s always exciting to talk about transformational technology and startup companies are often the folks who bring it to us. Naturally, out of that comes a lot of analysis about what attributes lead to startup success. One of these attributes that is often talked about is something we discussed in class: network effects. […]
Cartels and Fixed Pricing
Link: https://www.npr.org/2016/02/15/466491812/narconomics-how-the-drug-cartels-operate-like-wal-mart-and-mcdonalds Source Commentary: the above article was sourced from NPR and is a short summary of a podcast featuring Tom Wainwright, the Mexico correspondent at the time of writing for The Economist. With shows like Narcos first airing through the immensely popular Netflix in 2015 and its spinoff Narcos: Mexico being released just recently, […]
Six Degrees of Separation And 1000 Miles of Distance
Article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/19/upshot/facebook-county-friendships.html?mtrref=www.google.com In the article, the author discusses the analyses performed by researchers in relation to ties on Facebook. While some may assume like-minded individuals are more likely to be connected, the data shows distance is the main predictor of whether or not two individuals are connected. In other words, while individuals in New York and […]
The Condorcet Paradox and Brexit Tensions
Article Link Ever since the United Kingdom’s “Brexit” referendum in 2016, many economists and politicians have expressed concern about the economic fallout that would result from leaving the European Union (EU). In fact, with numerous protests and public outcry it would seems that the tide has turned against leaving the EU. Many have suggested […]
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