Ideas and the Return of the Real Economy
Armando Lara-Millan, Professor
Sociology
Applications for Fall 2025 are closed for this project.
Sometimes ideas about changing market signals can actually precede big changes in the economy, other times they can be too late, and sometimes those ideas can even cause changes. This project tracks ideas about three broad ongoing disruptions to the current global economic order. The first is that since 2011, the relative cost of labor in China finally rose to a level that matches the relative cost of labor in the United States. Because global supply chains were dependent on cheap labor costs in China and high prices in the West for nearly four decades, this historic change has created much uncertainty in global markets. Second, is a shift from dependence on cheap oil and gas prices to the uncertainty of high mineral costs. As the world is increasingly pivoting to energy renewables, minerals such as copper, lithium, and others needed to make the energy transition are rapidly changing where firms see economic opportunity. Finally, is the slowdown in the global expansion of the internet. Much of the economic growth of recent decades was also predicated on the rapid expansion of internet users (which outpaced the growth of the personal car) and firms are increasingly recognizing the saturation of this market in the rich world. This project uses the "earning calls" of top multinational firms to understand if firms in different economic sectors are picking up on these changes, when they picked up on them, and if their sentiment towards them as disruptions or opportunities are changing. Our task this year is to continue the assembly of this large data set of corporate earnings calls.
Role: Cleaning data, verifying data, preparing large data set of corporate earnings calls. Opportunities to take on greater leadership role in wider project.
Qualifications: Able to work in teams, communicate effectively, follow through on tasks. Familiarity with excel.
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Danyang Li
Hours: to be negotiated
Off-Campus Research Site: We will meet via zoom.
Social Sciences