Are the factors that propelled Donald Trump to power this time around broadly the same as those that helped him win his first election victory in 2015? While the circumstances are different from a decade ago, the secular societal forces that drive support for Trump are also strikingly familiar.  Welcome to the Chicago Booth Review podcast, where we bring you groundbreaking academic research in a clear and straightforward way. I’m Hal Weitzman. Today, as we prepare for another Trump inauguration, we’re digging into the CBR archives to revisit a conversation between Chicago Booth’s Luigi Zingales and Amir Sufi about the fundamentals behind Trump’s appeal. The conversation was filmed in May 2016 as part of our Big Question video series, which brings together Booth faculty for an in-depth discussion. We wanted to bring it back because we were struck more by a sense of continuity than change. For some observers, Trump’s re-election was all about economics, chiefly voters’ experience of inflation and their mistrust of globalization. To others, it reflects a general disenchantment with politicians and political institutions. Those are the same phenomena that Zingales and Sufi pinpoint. The discussion also touched on the rise of the far-right across the world, which at the time was still on the margins of politics, but has since taken power in several large democracies.

Many of us react to the term “performance review” with a shudder. It’s that awkward periodic conversation in which we have to hear feedback, share our assessments of each other, and, occasionally clash with our colleagues. But do performance reviews have to be like that? We hear from Chicago Booth’s Stacey Kole. Does she think that performance reviews are worth saving, and if so, how can they be revamped?

Most of us have found ourselves at some point arguing that the organizations we work in need to change. Change is hard – which is why there’s a multi-billion dollar change-management industry. But what can you do to make the case for change from within? Chicago Booth’s James Janega is a former journalist who now works as a Managing Partner at Growth Innovation Strategy Group and teaches storytelling to MBA students and executives at Booth. He argues that stories can help us make the case for change, regardless of the organization we’re trying to improve.

Most of us have found ourselves at some point arguing that the organizations we work in need to change. Change is hard – which is why there’s a multi-billion dollar change-management industry. But what can you do to make the case for change from within? Chicago Booth’s James Janega is a former journalist who now works as a Managing Partner at Growth Innovation Strategy Group and teaches storytelling to MBA students and executives at Booth. He argues that stories can help us make the case for change, regardless of the organization we’re trying to improve.

It’s that time when we start to think about what we want to achieve in the coming year. What can you do to make sure that this year you stay motivated and focused on your goals? We ask two experts for advice: Chicago Booth’s Ayelet Fishbach, author of Get It Done: Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation, and Wharton’s Katy Milkman, author of How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.

Evangelists of Bitcoin say its strength is the distributed ledger that no one institution controls. But as it turns out, that makes it open to sabotage, a vulnerability that will prevent it from replacing real currencies. Chicago Booth’s Eric Budish has spent his career thinking about market design and proposing fixes to flaws— work that has earned him the niche title of “the LeBron James of batch auctions.” According to Budish, the cost of securing Bitcoin at a really large scale is too high, and that will always limit its growth.

Crafting an effective startup pitch is hard. Entrepreneurs have a short amount of time to convey the problem they’re trying to solve, establish the size of the market, cover their business plan, establish their credentials, and come across as likeable and easy to work with. We get advice from Chicago Booth’s James Janega, a former journalist who now works as a Managing Partner at Growth Innovation Strategy Group and teaches storytelling to MBA students and executives at Booth.

In recent decades, stock markets have increasingly been speeding up, with large numbers of high-frequency traders executing trades at speeds up to billionths of a second. Does that reward the most powerful computers at the expense of retail investors? Chicago Booth’s Eric Budish, who argues that the incentives for high-speed trading stem from the flaws in the way financial markets are designed. At the same time, it’s become cumbersome and complicated for institutional investors to execute trades as they would like to. With both challenges in mind, Budish outlines two simple ideas from his research that could transform stock markets for the better.

Impact investing aims to serve two purposes: creating both profit and positive social outcomes. But is that possible? Is there always a trade-off between profits and impact? In the second of our two conversations with Chicago Booth’s Priya Parrish—author of the new book The Little Book of Impact Investing: Aligning Profit and Purpose to Change the World—we discuss whether it’s possible to make healthy returns on your investments while pursuing your social goals.

Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election took many pundits by surprise. Voters consistently said the economy was their top issue, but even though the US economy is currently the world’s top performer, they nevertheless voted for a change in government. That led many observers to claim that Trump’s supporters had a warped view of the economy, concentrating more on inflation than on growth. Chicago Booth’s Lubos Pastor disagrees. His research suggests that voters knew the economy was growing, and that was, in fact, the very reason why they wanted a change of government. Pastor’s model is relatively simple: when the economy is strong economy, more voters opt for the Republican candidate in elections, while a weak economy favors Democrats. This pattern has held since 1927, regardless of the candidates or the incumbents. The reason has to do with how the economy shapes people’s attitudes to risk, which is also explains another phenomenon: the stock market performs much better under Democratic presidents than under Republicans.