January 2021
Internet: Personalised Recommendations
Eric Danan, Thibault Gajdos and Jean-Marc Tallon*
Most Internet platforms that we use daily –– Facebook, Amazon, Spotify, LinkedIn, Trip Advisor and others –– offer us recommendations based on the massive volume of data that they collect. The exact way in which the recommendations are established varies from one platform to another, but they all work on a simple principle called collaborative filtering: the content that they recommend to you are those that other clients with similar tastes...
- Short link to this article: https://bit.ly/35VomUA
........................
Income inequality under colonial rule in the 20th century
Facundo Alvaredo*, Denis Cogneau* and Thomas Piketty*
Almost by definition, colonial societies entailed huge inequalities in political power and agency, as well as in social and economic opportunities, if only along the racial divide between European and autochthonous populations. The day-to-day experience of colonized peoples is well known; from very early on, the various forms of domination and discrimination were exposed through militant pamphlets, analytical essays, and sociological works...
- Short link to this article: https://bit.ly/3sFzsGR
........................
The effect of the Rana Plaza collapse on multinational firms’ imports
Pamina Koenig* and Sandra Poncet*
The globalisation of production processes has made the task of identifying social and environmental responsibilities in production operations more difficult because such operations are subject to the sometimes less stringent regulations in supply countries. NGOs, in particular, have developed strategies to counter the lack of transparency in global value chains and denounce publicly those companies whose production conditions they judge unethical...
- Short link to this article: https://bit.ly/39QnotD
........................
Could statutory distribution of profits reduce shareholder conflicts?
Emilie Bonhoure*
Conflicts among shareholders can be highly deleterious to a firm. They are usually generated by the divergent interests of the different categories of shareholders: controlling shareholders, or management shareholders, and minority shareholders who own only a few shares in the company and therefore do not have the heft to influence its decisions (except through selling their shares). The interest of the latter is that the firm...
- Short link to this article: https://bit.ly/35TvwZp
........................
Vaccine Allocation: Spillovers and Behavior
Nikhil Vellodi* and Joshua Weiss
Vaccine policies are a crucial ingredient in the eradication of pandemics. Given the scarcity of supply, and the urgent need for roll-out, the prudent prioritization of vaccine allocation is of paramount importance. Prevailing prioritization schemes revolve around two key attributes: vulnerability risk and transmission risk. Thus far, however, little attention has been devoted to the role that behavior plays in designing optimal vaccination policies...
- Short link to this article: https://bit.ly/2XUR1EI
........................
* PSE Members
To read the previous synthesis (since nov. 2013) follow this link