Ben Leyden

Output from Claude: “Thinking… I keep making the same mistake. I’m clearly confusing myself.”

AI Assistants — They’re just like us!

Platform design and innovation incentives: Evidence from the product rating system on Apple's App Store I study how the aggregation of product ratings on digital platforms affects the strategic behavior of third-party firms. Leveraging an unexpected and …

The full paper is available here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Platform Design Can Stifle Innovation Lessons from Apple’s iOS App Store rating system

New write-up of my paper “Platform Design & Innovation Incentives” is up on Platform Papers! Apple’s old App Store rating rules curbed app updates, likely slowing product innovation. Thoughtful platform design matters. #econsky

Today’s edition: I got my car’s annual inspection on Friday. So naturally, I got a call from the dealer today telling me a survey from Ford was on the way “and anything below a 5 is failing.”

Research at risk: Life-saving heart pumps for babies | Cornell Chronicle After receiving a stop-work order from the federal government, the future of a device to help children with heart defects is uncertain.

One of grants frozen at Cornell: $6.7M (4 yrs) to develop heart pumps for babies born w/ heart defects.

It took decades of work to get to point of prepping device for in-human clinical trials. No private company could do this.

The cruelty of the Trump administration is heartbreaking. So to speak.

I’m sad to see Alpine go! It was a defining part of my time at Carolina. RIP Butch’s Mile High (is it even attributed to Butch anymore?). 🥯

Setting up Calendar Managed Availability Calendar Managed Availability allows you to manage your availability for bookings directly on your linked calendar - without having to login to YouCanBookMe every time you want to modify availabili...

You Can Book Me has a feature where you can add free blocks directly on your calendar to make them available to students (and any booked meetings show up as usual). I keep hoping Calendly will add something similar, but I haven’t seen it yet.

support.youcanbook.me/hc/en-us/art...

Opinion | Why Trump’s Tariff Math Is a Joke A look inside the administration’s methodology is a real eye-opener.

My friend Brent Neiman is doing God's work to show that these tariffs are ridiculous, even within the terms of the stated goals of the policy -- which are also ridiculous. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/o...

Could ATT be rolled back? | Mobile Dev Memo by Eric Seufert Could ATT be rolled back?. Mobile marketing and advertising, freemium monetization strategy, and marketing science. Mobile Dev Memo.

Really interesting article on how a number of European national regulators are pushing Apple to rollback the ATT (App Tracking Transparency) policy, on antitrust grounds.
mobiledevmemo.com/could-att-be...

Call for papers for the Text-as-Data Workshop in Economics at Lancaster University

Join us at the 2nd Workshop on Text-as-Data in Economics!

Keynotes:
- Andreas Hoefele (Ofcom)
- Arianna Ornaghi (Hertie School)
- Carlo Schwarz (Bocconi University)

When: May 15-16
Where: Lancaster, UK
Submit by March 17

Info at: sites.google.com/view/text-as...

Since federal health information is getting harder to come by, I thought I'd share this new resource. Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine launched an online Avian Flu Resource Center--a one-stop clearinghouse for trustworthy information on bird flu.

www.vet.cornell.edu/highly-patho...

The US WW2 medical research and development effort catalyzed postwar science, modernized drug discovery, and fueled the postwar National Institutes of Health — reshaping biomedical innovation for decades, from Daniel P. Gross and Bhaven N. Sampat https://www.nber.org/papers/w33457

Modern supply chains don't look like trade theory 101!

They involve constant border crossings, each now hit by tariffs.

Tariffs raise prices, but the more important thing they do is disrupt supply relationships.

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Phone notification showing an Apple Intelligence summary of messages from Slack. The summary reads, “Carolina basketball is having a bad time.”

Sometimes Apple Intelligence gets it right.

It's not often that a theory paper piques my interest these days*, but this by @snageebali.bsky.social and coauthors, on the logic behind zero-sum thinking by voters, is just brilliant -- and so relevant and urgent! www.econometricsociety.org/publications...

An image showing a notification from Apple’s Sports app for a basketball score with Boston College (BC) leading North Carolina (UNC) 89-87 with 18 seconds remaining in the second half. This information is incorrect; the game has already ended with a 102-96 win for UNC.

An image from Apple’s Sports app displaying a college basketball game. The headline score shows Boston College (BC) 76 and North Carolina (UNC) 74, with “2nd 0:00” indicating the end of regulation. The box score, however, reflects the final score after overtime: BC 96 and UNC 102.

Apple’s Sports app is awful. It *simultaneously* reports 18 seconds left with scores in the 80s, a 74-76 loss for the Heels, and a 102-96 win (see box score).

Maybe we don’t need to worry about self-preferencing after all…

Looking forward to my very first poster presentation at #ASSA2025! I'll be in the 'Highlighted Posters' row today and tomorrow around lunchtime -- if you're attending, stop by to chat and say hi!

You should do a milk punch! I tried a couple around Thanksgiving and was really happy with how they turned out. They’re very easy, but require some advance planning.

bsky.app/profile/benl...

YouTube video by MegaLag Exposing the Honey Influencer Scam

This is wild: the Honey chrome extension for coupons effective “steals” the affiliate link sale for every purchase you make by overriding the affiliate code where you clicked from - even if it doesn’t find you a coupon youtu.be/vc4yL3YTwWk

YouTube video by UCL School of Management MRes & PhD in Management | UCL School of Management

All research groups @ UCL School of Management are recruiting new PhD students: Org. Behaviour, Strategy, Operations, Marketing, & Financial Econ.
Great education & research environment!
Students receive full scholarship+generous stipend.
Apply by Jan 1: www.mgmt.ucl.ac.uk/phd

youtu.be/Rl2tHlXZUIM

Earlier this semester a student showed me how they had dumped all my lecture slides into ChatGPT to create a study guide. The results were awful. It was actively misleading the student. I don't yet know if this product will be better, but I know we need to be proactive about these issues.

I haven't had a chance to test this out, so I can't comment on the specifics of this product. But our students are already using LLMs-often badly-so I'm glad to see serious attempts to develop this technology specifically for educational purposes.

International Industrial Organization Conference | Industrial Organization Society

Our call for papers has been posted! Get ready for #IIOC2025 May 2-4 in Philadelpha. Submission deadline 1/31.
www.indorgsociety.org/conference

My 14 month old after I wipe his face for two seconds

Great win by the Heels!

I'm very excited to join the Brooks School of Public Policy and the Department of Economics at @cornelluniversity.bsky.social in January. And we're hiring pre-doc fellows in development economics! Great 1–2 year PhD preparation. Please share widely! cornell.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/CornellCaree...

IO Join the conversation

With all the new joiners, my original IO/org econ starter pack hit its size limit.

I have therefore split into into two (with some overlap). This starter pack is broadly for IO, competition and innovation:
go.bsky.app/Rchu8QX

1/2

#EconSky

My problem is that I sometimes (ok, often) forget what I have to begin with. At least I know that if I find the right folder I’ll be presented with all the work that has been done so far.