That was the topic of a panel I was involved in at the Chicago Booth Annual Antitrust Conference last week. One thing you get from a Chicago panel is a diverse range of opinions. The panel was motivated by an article in the Yale Law Journal by Lina Khan written when she was a student …
Can AI make you happier with clothes?
There is a great scene in A Series of Unfortunate Events (the Lemony Snicket books and now Netflix series) where a couple live in a fashionable penthouse suite but the elevator in the building is off limits because elevators are presently ‘out.’ So everyone, happily or not, has to ascend and descend many flights of …
Prediction Machines
My book with Ajay Agrawal and Avi Goldfarb is out now. It is called Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence. We have written some pieces that provide little excursions into the book. "A Simple Tool to Start Making Decisions with AI," HBR Online, 17 April 2018. "Make sure AI is right for your business …
Some simple economics of ICOs
I have a new paper out (ungated here) with Christian Catalini (or 'Dan' as we call him) that examines initial coin offerings (or ICOs). These are the big new thing in fund raising for ventures whereby startups issue tokens that are redeemable for services that they may provide or facilitate in the future. Here is John …
Is your data really oil?
[with Ajay Agrawal and Avi Goldfarb, originally published in HBR Online under the title "Is your company's data actually valuable in the AI era?" , 17 Jan 2018. Their book, Prediction Machines, is coming out in April 2018]. AI is coming. That is what we heard throughout 2017 and will likely continue to hear throughout this year. …
2017 Digital Year in Review
It is time for the annual review of the past year in digital economics. As in prior years, this review will resemble an awards ceremony. And there are so many events deserving of recognition -- hackers at Equifax, Russian ads at Facebook, #metoo on Twitter, an implosion at Uber, and a bubble at Bitcoin, to …
What’s a Bitcoin worth?
Many people say nothing but that is the same of all money like assets to some degree. Bob Shiller says we can't actually tell as it is worth what people think it is worth and that could be anything. I wonder if we can do better. To be sure, "better" is not great. But I …
