In recent decades, US pension and endowment funds have increasingly allocated funds to alternative investments such as private equity and venture capital. Will those investments pay off? Chicago Booth's Joe Pagliari tells us about his research on real-estate private-equity funds, and explains his concerns that they may not generate the returns that they expected to earn.

The US supermarket business is cut-throat, but amid it all Trader Joe's has been able to carve a distinct role. Chicago Booth's Ram Shivakumar explains how it has thrived, and what it tells us about business strategy in a highly competitive market.

Schools are trying to restrict or at least identify the use of AI, and colleges are attempting to catch students who cut and paste generated text to use in their assignments. How effective are the tools they're using? Chicago Booth's Brian Jabarian about his research on AI detection tools. Jabarian points out that it's not just education that's affected, but also the reviews that drive consumer purchases. So can online tools help you detect if that restaurant review was written by ChatGPT?

New York, LA, Chicago, Boston and other big US cities have traditionally been a good bet for real-estate investors. But that view is changing. Chicago Booth's Joe Pagliari explains why those traditional markets are riskier investments, and why more and more real-estate investors are looking at cities such as Atlanta, Dallas, Denver and Houston.

For the 30 years leading up to the COVID pandemic, productivity in US restaurants was essentially flat. Since the pandemic, restaurant productivity has soared—because of the rise of take-out and delivery. Chicago Booth's Chad Syverson about his research into the restaurant productivity boom. How has take-out and delivery transformed the economics of the food industry?

Critics of social welfare programs often talk about how payments can disincentivize work. But is that always the case? Chicago Booth's Rebecca Dizon Ross talks about her research on how parents of disabled children think about the social safety net and investing in their kids' human capital. Could giving them better information help shape their thinking and behavior?

It's a cliché for organizations to say that their people are their most important asset, but how important is the person at the top? Can we measure the impact of a CEO or a manager? Chicago Booth's Mike Gibbs gives us a survey of economic research on leadership and management. How much of a difference does a good leader make? And why do "manager-types" so often struggle when they get promoted to leadership roles?

Economics is all around us. At least, that's what Chicago Booth's Ram Shivakumar believes, and he's on a mission to demonstrate that economics is not about numbers or theoretical models, but is at play in many everyday decisions, like whether to order a pizza, where to buy it from and what toppings to get. If economics isn't about numbers, what is it about?

A warmer world is here. Now what? Listen to Shocked, from the University of Chicago's Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, and hear journalist Amy Harder and economist Michael Greenstone share new ways of thinking about climate change and cutting-edge solutions: https://lnk.to/shockedpodcast!boothreview

In the west, we are more likely to choose our friends and dropping them is relatively easily done. In other cultures, people tend to stick with the same social network for their whole lives. But does the ability to choose and to drop your friends make you happier? Chicago Booth's Thomas Talhelm tells us about his research on social circles and happiness. Why do friendships endure more in Japan than in the US? Who's happier? And how important is happiness anyway?