Research

Disclaimer: This post summarizes and comments on a publicly available research paper. All interpretations are solely my own. Brent Neiman gave a talk on his paper with Gregor Matvos, Financial Sanctions and the Global Payments Network. The data come from LexisNexis Risk Solutions: standard settlement instructions (SSIs), which record, for each currency a bank can receive, the correspondent(s) it receives through. Stacked together, they give a map of the correspondent network by currency: 17,403 EMDE financial institutions, six snapshots from September 2021 to August 2026, merged with an OFAC/EU/HMT sanctions indicator. ...

I love working. I get a day off and I’m confused. I’m like, cause I’ll have to do something? But sometimes being too occupied drowns oneself. I will find myself staring at the computer screen with something displaying yet my mind simply does not work. The delicate balance of being active and burnt out is something that shall not be taken for granted. Already feeling losing a bit of control over life, here’s some minimal effort of taking it back––the list of to-read papers and priorities that should be on the top of my mind. ...

When opportunity comes, say, when you find yourself sharing an elevator with a Nobel Prize winner in your field, with just a few floors left to impress them. It’s sales pitch in academic–to impress people using a concise, compelling summary that highlights the brilliance and relevance of your work. It’s your chance to leave them thinking, “Wow, I need to know more about this!” In my journey, I often find myself needing to explain kidney exchange to introduce people to market design—my dream field. However, I sometimes struggle with organizing my language or recalling precise facts. Therefore, in the coming days, I will be doing a literature and fact review on kidney exchange and general transplantation. Stay tuned for more insights!

Recently, China’s primary, stable, all-in-one, state-railway-bureau-directly-operated official railway ticketing platform, 12306, announced an expansion into the airline ticket market. This move is not expected to reduce airfare costs directly, yet it signifies a notable shift in the competitive landscape for Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) like CTrip, potentially impacting their market share and profitability. Understanding the mechanics of airline ticket sales is crucial here. Airlines set their flight schedules, seat pricing, and then distribute this information through a Global Distribution System (GDS). OTAs access this data, aggregating flight options for consumers as intermediate information sources without directly influencing ticket supply or pricing. Similarly, railway tickets follow this model, with OTA revenue deriving from commissions, sales bonuses from airlines, and fees for ticket changes and cancellations. They OTAs are notoriously famous for offering overwhelmingly termed insurance contracts for reschedule or refund, and they charge a inflated fee for any uninsured reschedule, not to mention cancellation. ...

The latest episode of Freakonomics podcast titled Is Google Getting Worse? (Update) covered a topic (sponsored search) that I thought I was familiar with, but after listening, found myself to be pondering with new thoughts. To begin with, the guest list of this episode is already unimaginably fantastic: SOURCES Marissa Mayer, co-founder of Sunshine; former C.E.O. of Yahoo! and vice president at Google. Ryan McDevitt; professor of economics at Duke University. Tim Hwang, media researcher and author; former Google employee. Elizabeth Reid, vice president of Search at Google. Aravind Srinivas, C.E.O. and co-founder of Perplexity. Jeremy Stoppelman, C.E.O. and co-founder of Yelp. And it mentioned several interesting new facts. Particularly, the process of how PageRank was integrated as Google Search’s core algorithm. I used to took it as granted, but well, idea don’t just grow on chips: ...

Music exists at the sublime confluence of mathematics and artistry, embodying a synergy that elevates both disciplines. The essence of music theory, particularly in the analysis of chords, mirrors an advanced form of modular arithmetic, showcasing a mathematical elegance. Musical scores serve as encoded scripts of melodies, awaiting decryption and performance. Particularly, Johann Sebastian Bach epitomizes this blend of mathematical intricacy and artistic beauty, standing as a paragon of the fusion between the two realms. ...

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