Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Akst writes that MIT researchers have developed a way to “tap into the insight of the expert minority within a crowd—a minority whose views would otherwise be swamped in a simple majority vote or poll.” The technique significantly enhanced “the wisdom of crowds, reducing errors by more than 20%.”
Writing for The Boston Globe, Elisabeth Reynolds, executive director of the Industrial Performance Center, suggests that advanced manufacturing could create new job opportunities in the U.S. Reynolds notes that “advanced manufacturing, which combines new information technology with advanced machinery, is reinvigorating manufacturing and creating opportunities in the United States that did not seem feasible just over a decade ago.”
In an article for The Washington Post, Prof. David Singer writes that by limiting the Federal Reserve’s independence, Congress could hurt the U.S. economy. “Keeping the Fed independent and actively engaged in international coordination is the best way to maintain a stable and internationally competitive financial system in the 21st century,” he explains.
In a Huffington Post article, Prof. David Autor lists the pressing long-and short-term issues that economists will focus on in 2017. Among the long-term concerns are the effects of artificial intelligence and machine learning, which could potentially disrupt “the value of products produced using manual labor in the developing world.”
A new study by Prof. John Van Reenen finds that Britain’s exit from the European Union could cause a “negative impact on gross domestic product per capita of almost four times that of previous estimates,” reports Lucy Meakin for Bloomberg.
Prof. David Autor writes for The Huffington Post that imposing tariffs could slow the U.S.’s economic growth. A better solution, he writes, is smarter trade policy and to “aggressively enforce our current policies to protect intellectual property, enforce rule of law, and require equal treatment from our trading partners.”
An MIT study finds that online and in-store goods are sold at the same price 70 percent of the time, reports Meghan Woolhouse of The Boston Globe. Prof. Alberto Cavallo believes online and in store prices are typically the same because shoppers would likely react badly “to price differences for the same goods from the same retailer.”
Patrick Gillespie of CNN highlights the work of Professors Daron Acemoglu and David Autor in a piece about how automation is responsible for more job losses than trade. Acemoglu explains that by preventing trade now, “some of that production might come back, but the employment that comes back will not be for people, it will be for robots."
An algorithm developed by MIT researchers helps extract the correct answer from a large group of people even when the majority of people answer incorrectly, writes Erin Ross for Nature. While previous assumptions viewed the average opinion of a crowd as correct, the algorithm identifies “specialists with special knowledge, like doctors,” explains Prof. Dražen Prelec.
Scientific American reporter Simon Makin writes that MIT researchers have developed a new approach to extract correct answers from a crowd. “The new method performed better than majority or confidence-based methods alone, reducing errors by between 21 and 35 percent,” Makin explains.
Wall Street Journal reporter David Harrison writes that a study by Prof. Daron Acemoglu shows that aging populations have not had a negative effect on economic growth. The researchers found that investments in robotics “make it easier for firms to replace departing workers even when there are fewer younger workers to take the retirees’ place.”
Melvin Konner writes for The Wall Street Journal about new MIT research that shows mobile-money services helped lift at least 194,000 Kenyan households out of extreme poverty. The researchers found that the services significantly helped women, and estimated that mobile banking “induced 185,000 women to switch into business or retail” from farming, and increased saving.
A study by MIT researchers examines how the growth in pet health care spending can provide insights into the increase in human health care costs, writes Austin Frakt for The New York Times. Emotional treatment spending may explain “high and sometimes heroic end-of-life health care spending whether on your dog or on your mother,” explains Prof. Amy Finkelstein.
In an article about how to rebuild failed states, The Economist highlights Prof. Daron Acemoglu’s book “Why Nations Fail.” Acemoglu and his co-author Prof. James Robinson of the University of Chicago argue that political institutions largely determine a nation’s success, and that failed states provide “a general explanation for why poor countries are poor.”
Robert Gebelhoff writes for The Washington Post about a study by Prof. Tavneet Suri that shows mobile-money services helped reduce poverty in Kenya. The study “offers good evidence that having a place to put money that’s safe and easily accessible can make the lives of poor people considerably more efficient than cash-reliant economies,” Gebelhoff explains.