All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions

A central tenant in economic theory is that in competitive markets, firms should be optimizing.   If they aren’t competitive pressures drive them out of business. But what about the NFL? 

Two decades ago, UC Berkeley economist David Romer discovered that NFL coaches where not implementing the optimal strategy when deciding whether or not to go for it on fourth down. On this episode, he joins hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen to discuss the implications of his landmark study on fourth down strategy in the NFL.  

In this conversation, they discus...

The leaps and bounds made in AI in just the last three years have surprised even the experts, so hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen thought it might be time for another prophetic conversation about the future of this technology.  

Three years after their last conversation about AI with him, Jonathan and Jules sit down with Michal Kosinski, strategy and management professor at the University of Hong Kong. In this interview, they revisit some of their predictions from three years ago, arguing progress in large language models is dramatic but increasingly invisible to u...

Much of the literature on how climate change will impact GDP estimates that the economic will be very large. Moreover, the estimates vary widely, with some studies predicting catastrophic economic consequences of global warming. Are those estimates reasonable?

Hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen have written a new paper with Stanford research fellow Cem Kozanoglu called Permanent Climate Change and GDP. In their study, they examine the long-term effects of climate change on economic activity by looking at the effect on individual productivity of choosing to move within the US, and come up...

With mounting pressure on the higher education system in the U.S., how can a university’s board of trustees make a difference in combating some of the issues these institutions face?  

Hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen are back for a new season of the All Else Equal podcast, and in this episode they identify the major issues universities face today analyze the underlying root causes. They close the episode by explaining how board of trustees be more effective in solving the problems.    

Jonathan and Jules go through each level of st...

All Else Equal is taking a short break over the summer and will be revisiting some of our favorite conversations from last season. The show will be back with new episodes soon.

Solicited or not, advice on where to invest your money seems to be around every corner these days. But determining whether the advice is credible and worth listening to can be challenging. 

On this episode, hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen put sources of investment advice to the test and provide listeners with some guidance on how to judge t...

All Else Equal is taking a short break over the summer and will be revisiting some of our favorite conversations from last season. The show will be back with new episodes soon.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, working from home skyrocketed. Six years later, many companies have returned to in-person work, but hybrid models are still the dominant structure. So with WFH here to stay in some form, what’s the proper balance? And what are we at risk of losing in the long term with less in-office interaction?

Nick Bloom is an economics professor at...

All Else Equal is taking a short break over the summer and will be revisiting some of our favorite conversations from last season. The show will be back with new episodes soon. 

Whether it be in politics, public health, or corporate finance, why are people more likely to interpret facts or data in a way that fits their preconceived notions about the world as opposed to searching for the fundamental truth?  

A new paper from the Harvard Business School called, Sharing Models to Interpret Data (by Joshua Schwartzstein and Adi Sunderam)

studies the pro...

All Else Equal is taking a short break over the summer and will be revisiting some of our favorite conversations from last season. The show will be back with new episodes soon.

In the final part of this two-part interview, Steven Pinker, an experimental psychologist and Harvard professor, again joins hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen to discuss his new book When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life.

In this episode, Jonathan and Jules break down more revelatory examples from Steven’s...

All Else Equal is taking a short break over the summer and will be revisiting some of our favorite conversations from last season. The show will be back with new episodes soon. 

Everyday, we participate in seemingly arbitrary but essential choices for society to function. We all agree on what side of the road to drive on, to use paper currency, or to speak the same language. These kinds of choices make up a group’s common knowledge – things that are made blatantly and publicly known. But what about the things that are known, but unspoken? What is th...

All Else Equal is taking a short break over the summer and will be revisiting some of our favorite conversations from last season. The show will be back with new episodes soon. 

Historically, the U.S. has had a habit of overestimating the capabilities of its enemies. Why? Is this an intentional security strategy? Or does the U.S. need to change the way it gathers enemy intelligence? 

Former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster gives hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen a crash course on military intelligence and national security ad...

A proposed constitutional amendment on the ballots in California this November will impose a one-time 5% wealth tax on billionaires. Proponents of the amendment say it will bring upwards of $100 billion to California’s revenue, but how did they get to that number and what other side effects of this wealth tax could be looming in the wings? Will this tax actually raise more revenue? 

Hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen sit down with Stanford finance professor Joshua Rauh to discuss why wealth taxes don’t often achieve their desired result.  

The convers...

This episode originally aired previously and is being re-shared due to its continued relevance. Enjoy this conversation with Jeff Hawkins on intelligence, neuroscience, and the future of AI.

With growing concerns over whether or not AI will take away jobs and eventually become superior to human intelligence, maybe it’s time to take a closer look at the human brain and discover how AI will always have its limitations. 

Hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen sit down with Jeff Hawkins, a neuroscientist and computer scientist, whose book A Thousand Brains challenges the...

 How should academic discourse take place? Is it time to update the antiquated journal system? 

In the season finale, hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen tackle the problems present in the current system for disseminating academic research, including how digital distribution has eliminated effective curation while peer review remains slow, incentive-misaligned, and dominated by anonymous referees seeking to impress editors.

Together, they explain the inner-workings of the academic journal system and the problems with peer review. Jonathan also shares details about his new website, launched with fellow researchers, that provides a pla...

This week, we’re revisiting our ever-timely and fascinating conversation around misinformation with London Business School professor Alex Edmans. All Else Equal will be back with a new episode in two weeks. 

What is the real problem with misinformation? Are our biases so ingrained in us that we are unable to think critically about the world and the systems around us? What happens when large institutions attempt to push a heterodox narrative? Do we simply need more education to overcome misinformation, or do we need something much deeper—to learn to think critically again? In this episode, hosts...

What do measures of uncertainty tell us about the state of the economy and how should firms and households use

those measurements to inform decision-making? Hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen are joined by returning guest Nick Bloom,

professor of economics at Stanford University, whose research on the causes and consequences of uncertainty helped build the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index.

In the discussion, they cover the various ways to measure uncertainty including the VIX and text-based methods, Bloom explains how the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index works, why

...

Despite it being widely taught in business schools and practiced in the industry, you should think twice before using the internal rate of return as a criteria for making an investment decision.

Hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen are back to discuss why using the internal rate of return (IRR) as an investment decision rule is fundamentally flawed compared with the net present value (NPV).

They outline IRR’s problems including multiple or nonexistent solutions, failure to account for scale and timing, and structural vulnerability once financing/payment plans are allowed, en...

What value does a financial sector add to society? How would society function without a financial sector? 

In this episode, hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen make the case that a competitive market financial sector is crucial to economic growth and the betterment of society. 

Jonathan and Jules contend with the critiques they hear most often when it comes to free markets, breaking down the core purpose of a financial sector and why its value is not easily observable or necessarily fair. They also compare and contrast other financial systems, like co...

All Else Equal is on Spring Break this week, so we’re revisiting one of our most popular episodes dealing with the question: How does one become a CEO? We’ll be back with new episodes in two weeks. 

A lot has been written and said about CEOs and their compensation, but who are they really and how did they get there? According to the data, what are the most likely paths to become one? In this episode, hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen are joined by Dirk Jenter, Professor of Finance at the L...

Whether it be in politics, public health, or corporate finance, why are people more likely to interpret facts or data in a way that fits their preconceived notions about the world as opposed to searching for the fundamental truth?  

A new paper from the Harvard Business School called, Sharing Models to Interpret Data (by Joshua Schwartzstein and Adi Sunderam)

studies the propensity for people to adopt interpretations to data based on their community’s beliefs, and why this can lead to less accurate conclusions. Hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen are join...

In the rapid-moving world of delegated money management, it is important to recognize the differences in how mutual funds and alternative assets operate. When it comes to alternatives, how do these funds wind up with strong incentive contracts for the money managers as opposed to flat fee contracts more commonly seen in mutual funds? Why do managers of alternatives cap their fund sizes when it could potentially lead to lower fees?

On this episode, hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen examine the key differences between mutual funds and alternatives, by unpacking research in...

When the pandemic hit in 2020, working from home skyrocketed. Six years later, many companies have returned to in-person work, but hybrid models are still the dominant structure. So with WFH here to stay in some form, what’s the proper balance? And what are we at risk of losing in the long term with less in-office interaction?

Nick Bloom is an economics professor at Stanford University and one of the first researchers to take a serious look at the work from home phenomenon. He joins hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen to discuss hi...

In the final part of this two-part interview, Steven Pinker, an experimental psychologist and Harvard professor, again joins hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen to discuss his new book When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life.

In this episode, Jonathan and Jules break down more revelatory examples from Steven’s book that demonstrate how common knowledge is a first order explanatory variable for how humans behave. They also explore the role common knowledge plays in financial markets, particularly when it comes to speculative tr...

Everyday, we participate in seemingly arbitrary but essential choices for society to function. We all agree on what side of the road to drive on, to use paper currency, or to speak the same language. These kinds of choices make up a group’s common knowledge – things that are made blatantly and publicly known. But what about the things that are known, but unspoken? What is the purpose of innuendos, euphemisms, and veiling the true meaning of our words in society? 

Steven Pinker, an experimental psychologist and Harvard professor, joins hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules...

This holiday week, All Else Equal is looking back at its episode on the growth of private equity with Ludovic Phalippou. 

Private markets have taken off in the last couple decades, with more investors opting to invest in private equity and debt instead of public markets. But what caused that shift? And are the private markets really a better bet right now, or is there more to the story?  

Hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen sit down with private markets expert Ludovic Phalippou, a professor of financial economics at the Saïd Bu...

Historically, the U.S. has had a habit of overestimating the capabilities of its enemies. Why? Is this an intentional security strategy? Or does the U.S. need to change the way it gathers enemy intelligence? 

Former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster gives hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen a crash course on military intelligence and national security advising. 

The conversation covers why the overestimation of enemies happens, including historical examples of misjudgments, the role of proxies in modern conflicts, strategic considerations involving major powers like China, and the threat of...

As the 2025 municipal elections approach, the New York City mayoral race has garnered national buzz, with one issue particularly capturing attention: rent control. 

On this episode, hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen explore and unpack the best possible reasons for rent control, and why oftentimes – those reasons still come up short. 

They contextualize their discussion with historical examples from Chicago and San Francisco, analyze the arguments for rent control, and explain how despite rent control’s aim to bring more balance to the tenant-landlord dynamic, its negative repercussions on housing supply might...

Solicited or not, advice on where to invest your money seems to be around every corner these days. But determining whether the advice is credible and worth listening to can be challenging. 

On this episode, hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen put sources of investment advice to the test and provide listeners with some guidance on how to judge the credibility of someone’s stock picks. They also discuss private investing and the potential risk of getting in on the ground floor as an angel investor. 

Find All Else Equal on the...

With growing concerns over whether or not AI will take away jobs and eventually become superior to human intelligence, maybe it’s time to take a closer look at the human brain and discover how AI will always have its limitations. 

Hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen sit down with Jeff Hawkins, a neuroscientist and computer scientist, whose book A Thousand Brains challenges the way we think about intelligence and how the brain works. 

Jonathan, Jules, and Jeff discuss the fundamentals of how the human brain operates and how it differs from...

While a higher education may help your career in terms of income, how much of what you’re taught in a classroom actually prepares you for the work you do on the job?

Hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen chat with economist Bryan Caplan about his book, “The Case Against Education.” In the book, Bryan lays out why education these days is less about what you’re learning, and more about signaling to future employers that you’ll be a good hire.

Jonathan, Jules, and Bryan discuss the pitfalls of a modern lib...

It’s the final episode of the summer season and with some key mayoral races coming up this fall, we’re revisiting our conversation on inflation with Veronica Rappoport, a former official at the Central Bank of Argentina who had a front row seat to the country’s inflation crisis.   

Over the last couple U.S. election cycles, one policy idea to get inflation under control that is routinely floated is price caps. But history has shown time and time again that price caps do anything but reduce inflation. So why do policymakers still want to try it?

Private markets have taken off in the last couple decades, with more investors opting to invest in private equity and debt instead of public markets. But what caused that shift? And are the private markets really a better bet right now, or is there more to the story?  

Hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen sit down with private markets expert Ludovic Phalippou, a professor of financial economics at the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford and author of Private Equity Laid Bare. 

In the conversation, they explore what priv...

For the summer season, All Else Equal will be alternating between new episodes and reruns. In this week’s episode, we’re revisiting our conversation with Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University John Cochrane. 
 

What exactly is a trade deficit? And why are so many policymakers fixated on it? Lately, the trade deficit in the U.S. is taking the bulk of the blame for the economic situation we’re in and it’s one of the reasons the Trump administration is pushing for sweeping tariffs. But tariffs are likely not the answer, and a trad...

For the summer season, All Else Equal will be alternating between new episodes and reruns. In this week’s episode, we’re revisiting our conversation with Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and the author of the book Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy, Dani Rodrik.

With President Trump’s tariffs on Canada, Mexico, China, and other countries now in full swing, what consequences from an economic standpoint could the U.S. be facing? And what was the path that led us her...

For the summer season, All Else Equal will be alternating between new episodes and reruns. In this week’s episode, we’re revisiting our conversation with Madhav Rajan of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

As more and more universities move away from full-time MBA programs, what does the future of business education look like? How should it look?

In this episode, hear perspectives from three of the top business schools in the U.S.: Stanford Graduate School of Business, The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Booth...

For the summer season, All Else Equal will be alternating between new episodes and reruns. On this week’s episode, we’re revisiting our conversation with historian Victor Davis Hanson.

History shows that as societies rise to greatness, the scales eventually tip back and those societies fall. But what leads to that fall and are we heading toward one? 

In this episode, hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen speak with historian Victor Davis Hanson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who specializes in classics and military history.  

The convers...

For the summer season, All Else Equal will be alternating between new episodes and reruns. On this week’s episode, we’re revisiting our conversation with Mohamed El-Erian on the intricacies of national debt and the best ways to measure it. 

Mohamed, Jonathan, and Jules explore the broader macroeconomic and geopolitical factors at play. They discuss the importance of demographic shifts as well as recent technological advancements (AI) for economic growth and our fiscal future.

El-Erian is the former chair of President Obama's Global Development Council and former CEO of PIMCO. He is a Senior Fello...

Is the emperor wearing clothes?  

Hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen are joined by economist and political scientist Timur Kuran who wrote the book, Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification. This 30-year-old book explains the social phenomenon where people express preferences they do not have.   As political and social tensions have risen in the U.S., the freedom to express views that go against the status quo has become more difficult.  

Jonathan, Jules, and Timur discuss what preference falsification is and why people engage in it, historical and c...

If universities believe they should be free from government interference and that students and faculty have the right to freely express whatever viewpoints they hold, then the universities should be held to the same standard, right? 

Hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen are joined by Richard Saller, an American classist and former interim president of Stanford University, to discuss whether or not the government has the right to intervene in university affairs and the hypocrisy that sometimes surrounds these issues. 

The conversation covers the recent statement signed by 562 university presidents advocating fo...

What exactly is a trade deficit? And why are so many policymakers fixated on it? Lately, the trade deficit in the U.S. is taking the bulk of the blame for the economic situation we’re in and it’s one of the reasons the Trump administration is pushing for sweeping tariffs. But tariffs are likely not the answer, and a trade deficit might be better referred to as a capital surplus.  

As a continuation of the tariffs discussion in the last episode, hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen are joined by John Cochra...

With President Trump’s tariffs on Canada, Mexico, China, and other countries now in full swing, what consequences from an economic standpoint could the U.S. be facing? And what was the path that led us here? 

Hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen put the tariffs question to economist and author Dani Rodrik. Rodrik is  the Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and the author of the book Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy. 

Beginning with t...