More News from IWER

Private firms, especially smaller ones, aren't required to follow public-company accounting rules — but many do anyway. A new survey of 542 CFOs at U.S. private firms, by associate professor Andrew Sutherland and co-authors, found that most are still reporting under GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles), the accounting "gold standard" behind the financial statements investors and regulators expect from public companies.

Central bankers are haunted by the memory that their predecessors "didn't get it right in the 1970s," said professor Simon Johnson. "They thought it was a temporary shock they could accommodate with lower interest rates, and they ended up regretting that because inflation became much higher." Johnson predicted that higher energy prices ignited by the war with Iran are "going to massively intensify the debate inside the Fed" and make U.S. rate cuts less likely.

Markets now seem to be betting on a longer conflict, which could mean global oil supplies are disrupted for months, said professor Christopher Knittel, associate dean for climate and sustainability. Even when the conflict does settle down and oil prices fall, gas prices will likely take their time catching up."Gas prices track oil prices almost immediately when oil prices are going up. But when oil prices are going down, gas prices lag behind," he said.

While a "run" is often the last thing that happens before a bank fails, it is almost never the root cause, according to a new working paper by professor Emil Verner and co-authors. "The fundamental problem is not the illiquidity. The illiquidity is kind of a symptom, usually, of a deeper problem, which is that banks have losses on loans they've made, or on securities they hold," said Verner.

Professor Andrew W. Lo has described today's AI chatbots as the "digital equivalent of sociopaths." While the language may sound harsh, he describes them as smooth, persuasive and devoid of empathy. They can present both good and bad advice with the same confident tone.

Professor Yasheng Huang joined this podcast to discuss the inflation landscape in China versus the United States and his forthcoming book on the "Needham Question." "The Needham Question, proposed by professor Joseph Needham in the 1960s, asks why China led the rest of the world in technology during much of human history but then began to fall apart beginning in the 14th, 15th, and 16th century," said Huang

Professor Catherine Wolfram said: "Economists talk about what's called rockets and feathers — that gas prices go up like rockets when oil prices go up, but then if oil prices go back down they go back down like feathers. If you're coming into the period when gas prices tend to rise because of summer driving, they might just stay high, even if oil prices go back down."

Research scientist Christian Catalini joined this podcast to discuss the new paper he co-authored, "Some Simple Economics of AGI." In the paper, the co-authors wrote: "Today's defining challenge is not the race to deploy the most autonomous systems; it is the race to secure the foundations of their oversight. Only by scaling our bandwidth for verification alongside our capacity for execution can we ensure that the intelligence we have summoned preserves the humanity that initiated it."

Professor David Thesmar said: "Economic studies find that AI can only replace a small percentage of the tasks performed by employees. That's because most of the work happens in the physical world, and humanoid robots aren't ready yet. The tasks replaceable by AI find themselves scattered across all jobs, which can paradoxically make employees more attractive for businesses." (Source: L'Express)

When Nvidia first announced it would invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI last September, professor Michael Cusumano described it to the Financial Times as "kind of a wash," observing that "Nvidia is investing $100 billion in OpenAI stock, and OpenAI is saying they are going to buy $100 billion or more of Nvidia chips."