The University of Chicago: Research at Chicago
Research at Chicago is produced by The University of Chicago Office of the Vice President for Research in cooperation with the University News Office and a variety of university research centers. The content included on this Web site was created by the University and/or has been selected from recent publications, press releases, newspapers, and Web sites produced by the University of Chicago. Visit our Web site at http://research.uchicago.edu/highlights to watch video versions of these interviews. ©2005 The University of Chicago®
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Gobero: Preparing the Triple Burial
One of the most exquisite discoveries from Gobero is a triple burial which preserved an adult woman interred with two young children. The bodies were buried with their arms around each other and were holding hands. Paul Sereno's vision was to create something unique that would enable people to 1) vi ...
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Gobero: An Interdisciplinary Discovery
Paul Sereno, Professor in Organismal Biology & Anatomy, discusses an unexpected discovery he made while searching for dinosaur fossils in the Sahara desert in 2000. Sereno and his team uncovered a massive graveyard containing over 200 burials. By combining techniques from paleontology and archeo ...
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The Secret Life of Shells: Looking into the ecological past
Susan Kidwell, William Rainey Harper Professor in Geophysical Sciences, discusses a new tool for measuring human impact on marine ecosystems. By collecting data on the living organisms and the skeletal remains of those same organisms scientists can perform what is called a live-dead analysis. Large ...
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Nudge: A Conversation with the Authors
Thaler and Sunstein reminisce at their favorite Hyde Park lunch spot, Noodles, where they say they did some of their best work on the book. Noodles was so important to the creative process, it even made the acknowledgments. The two talk about what each brought to the project, the origin of the eleph ...
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Nudge: An Overview
University of Chicago Graduate School of Business Professor Richard Thaler gives an overview of his new book: "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness." He explains what nudges are and gives a few examples of how they can be useful.
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Long-Term Consumption: A Microeconomic Approach to Studying Asset Pricing
A fundamental economic question is the tradeoff between investment and consumption and how it determines asset prices in the macroeconomy. New research studies the relationship between consumption and asset prices using microeconomic data.
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Transparency and Political Relationships
Since the 1990s, foreign capital has become an increasingly important source of financing for emerging market firms. Because companies that access global capital markets receive substantial benefits, it is difficult to understand why so few firms take advantage of foreign capital markets.
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The Economics of Pricing: Can Higher Prices Stimulate Product Use?
The current practice of charging money for life-saving health products in developing countries is a source of controversy among policymakers. Opponents argue that the practice is unfair and that fees will result in goods only reaching the richest of the poor. Advocates of pricing, including non-gove ...
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Insider Trading and Future Earnings
Even though insider trading laws have become stricter over time, insiders are still trading their company's stock and making money from trades. New research examines how insiders limit trading their company's stock for fear of legal repercussions when future earnings reports are likely to become ext ...
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Discretion Meets Disclosure
It has long been suspected that fear of competition spurs managers to hide better-than-average business unit profit performance. However, a new study instead finds evidence that fear of increased oversight leads managers to hide less-than-average business unit performance.
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Rational Revolutions
The widespread adoption of new technologies-from the automobile to the internet-tends to be accompanied by stock market booms and busts. Why do the stock prices of innovative firms tend to exhibit apparent "bubbles" during technological revolutions?
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Reading the Fine Print
One of the key questions in corporate finance is how a firm's reliance on external finance affects its investment policy. New research suggests that creditors play a much more direct role in firm investment policy than has been previously recognized.
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Collegial Connections
Mutual fund managers tend to invest more heavily in companies headed by senior officers who attend the same universities as the fund mangers. Futhermore, those investments tend to be more fruitful than their holdings in firms with which they have no connection.
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Blowing the Whistle
New research suggests that the best way to promote fraud detection is to extend the Federal Civic False Claims Act to corporate fraud.
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One Bird, One Stone
How do we choose the means--that is, the actions, objects, or other resources--with which we attempt to achieve our goals? New research suggests that these choices are partly determined by the extent to which available means are only good for the specific goal we hope to accomplish.
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Know What I'm Thinking?
Much of everyday behavior is directed toward understanding, responding to, or attempting to change how we are seen by the people around us. We can be easily led astray, however, by common errors in these perceptions. New research shows us that when we want to better understand how others see us, we ...
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Howard T. Ricketts Laboratory: Overview and Tour
Olaf Schneewind, M.D., Ph.D, Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology, and Joe Kanabrocki, Ph.D, Biosafety Officer for the Ricketts Biocontainment Laboratory, talk about a new state-of-the-art facility designed to develop new treatments, diagnostic tests and vaccines for emerging infect ...
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Thai Family Research Project: How entrepreneurship shapes economies
Robert Townsend, co-director of the Thai Family Research Project, discusses the importance of individual entrepreneurs in shaping local and regional economies and reducing poverty. His findings draw on over 10 years of data collected from nearly 3,000 households throughout Thailand. This research co ...
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Chicago Assyrian Dictionary: The Final Chapter
Martha Roth, Ph.D., Professor of Assyriology and Dean of Humanities, discusses the final volume of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, a comprehensive lexicon of ancient Akkadian dialects 86 years in the making. Roth has served as Editor-in-Charge of the project for the past 11 years.
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The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary: The Final Chapter
Martha Roth, Ph.D., Professor of Assyriology, discusses the final volume of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, a comprehensive lexicon of ancient Akkadian dialects 86 years in the making. Roth has served as Editor-in-Charge of the project for the past 11 years.
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