A peculiar feature of WhatsApp groups has made the spread of misinformation much easier. We need better design guidelines for platforms like WhatsApp, ones that can curb disinformation without infringing on user privacy.
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Prateek Raj
Prateek Raj is an Assistant Professor in Strategy at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) and IIMB Young Faculty Research Chair. He studies how businesses and markets evolve(d) in history, and in developing countries. He is also a Junior Fellow at the Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Prateek earned his doctorate from University College London (UCL) in 2018, where he continues to be an Honorary Research Associate.
Articles by Prateek Raj:
Prize-Winning Innovations in Measuring Civic Capital and Its Effects
The European Economic Association has announced that this year’s Hicks Tinbergen medal will go to ProMarket editor and Stigler Center faculty director Luigi Zingales and his coauthors Luigi Guiso and Paola Sapienza for their 2016 paper “Long-Term Persistence.” Here, a current coauthor of Sapienza and Zingales credits the prizewinners with helping to make the study of informal institutions mainstream in economics.
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A Tale of Two Cities: Hamburg and Lübeck
The German cities of Hamburg and Lübeck have an interwoven and eventful history. Whereas Lübeck offers an example of how dominant cities may become unattractive and decline when they end up serving the interests of a privileged few and refuse to change, Hamburg serves as a tale of how cities can reinvent themselves by changing with the times.
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How Markets in Europe Opened Up as Guild Monopolies Declined in the Sixteenth Century
Markets don’t function well if they are ridden with frictions like lack of information or lack of trust. A new working paper finds that cities in the sixteenth century where monopolies of densely networked merchant guilds declined had significantly higher levels of printing, as they were early adopters of printing technology. Additionally, these cities were found on the Atlantic coast, where traders had the greatest incentives to form new connections with unfamiliar traders.
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“Antimonopoly Is as Old as the Republic”
Should the U.S. enforce more explicit restrictions on monopolies, or can innovation and democracy alone mitigate the pervasive effects of monopoly power? A panel of historians and economists at the recent Stigler Center conference on concentration in America discussed the historical evolution of this debate.
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Can Narratives Shape Society?
Narratives that alter beliefs and change norms or guiding principles may indeed have real and lasting effects.
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Does Regulation Build Trust or Entrench Cliques? Lessons From Merchant Guilds and the Taxi Industry
Close-knit networks, like guilds and taxi associations, are helpful in enhancing trust and reliability. Yet they can also become exclusive and rent-seeking.
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The Role of Narratives in Economics
Narratives are vectors of ideas. Nobel laureate Robert Shiller suggests that in the age of social information networks, economists need to rethink how and why information really spreads.
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