Tipping Points in the Upcoming Midterm Elections – Socioeconomic Values as “Prices” in the United States
The precarious state of which political party will be dominant in Congress and the Senate with the approaching midterm election is a timely example of tipping points in network effects. United States voters can be seen as the market for political candidates running for Congress. We can apply the concept of stability to analyze candidates’ […]
Clinical Applications of Bayes’ Rule
Bayes’ Rule describes the probability of an event given prior knowledge of another event related to the first. The computation behind calculating the probability of such scenarios is fairly simplistic, however, the theorem can be applied to far more complex circumstances. Such probabilistic reasoning is essential in settings such as a clinical environment. According to […]
Theory of Moves
Modeling social situations is complicated. In order to effectively analyze strategic behaviors of people, game theory often involves representing players’ strategies with models. Classic models include the payoff matrix, the “normal form”, or the game tree, the “extensive form” (562). In his paper, “Theory of Moves”, SJ Brahms presents a new way to model games […]
The Shed at Dulwich: How One Journalist Used Information Cascades Turn his Shed Into the Top Rated Restaurant in London
Before becoming a journalist, Oobah Butler worked many odd jobs. The job that he found the most fascinating was writing fake restaurant reviews: small restaurants paid him $13 to write a positive review of his experience at their establishment, despite never having eaten there. Butler would occasionally check back up on those restaurants just to […]
Why Free Trials Exist and Why Influencers Promote Games – Games and Network Effects
Companies that have products that rely on network effects need to efficiently market their products. These products need to get past the tipping point, otherwise their product is unlikely to succeed. The tipping point is a possible equilibrium quantity which represents the supply quantity of the good. If the population’s expectations for the number of […]
Trendy Shoes and Information Cascades
Some of the most popular fashion trends nowadays revolve around shoes of all different shapes, colors, and sizes. Shoes ranging from the expensive Yeezys to cheap, yet reliable Crocs have experienced waves of popularity in the last several years, but another shoe brand is particularly perplexing. Dr. Martens, colloquially known as Doc Martens, are big, […]
Fake Reviews on Amazon, Baye’s Rule, and Sequential decision-making and cascades
Amazon, as one of the most popular and well-known retail companies in the US, is a very likely primary choice for the general public for shopping. Without previous purchases, many customers rely on the review section of a certain product as a reliable indicator of quality. However, not all the reviews are actually written by […]
Why Dutch Auctions are not good for IPOs.
In the article, Efficiency in IPO Issuance Processes? Published in the Business Economics journal by Nayantara Hensel, The author questions if a Dutch auction is a good business decision for companies issuing their Initial Public Offering. A dutch auction is when an auctioneer starts at a very high price and keeps lowering until a buyer […]
College Rankings as a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Decided by a Powerful Authority
This New York Times article from earlier this academic year touches on the controversy of the U.S. News & World Report college rankings. As Cornell students, we know that our college decisions were likely a major decision for ourselves and our families for many reasons. For one thing, many see it as a stepping stone […]
Information Cascading: Correlation between cryptos and stocks, and the bull & bear cycle
https://learn.bybit.com/investing/bitcoin-stock-market-correlation/ This article talks about the correlation between Bitcoin price and S&P 500 index. In the early years of Bitcoin, its correlation with the market was low, so many fund managers thought it was a great tool to hedge against market risks and added Bitcoin to their portfolios. However, in recent years, the correlation between […]
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