Brett Hollenbeck
@bretthollenbeck.com
Associate professor at UCLA Anderson, works on IO, marketing etc. Temporary Parisian.
bretthollenbeck.com
bretthollenbeck.com
Pinned
Brett Hollenbeck
@bretthollenbeck.com
· Sep 1
Some news: I will be spending this entire 2025-26 academic year located in Paris, visiting the local universities and participating in the research community here.
If you work in Paris or are just passing though in the next year, please reach out, I'd be happy to meet up! PhD students especially!
If you work in Paris or are just passing though in the next year, please reach out, I'd be happy to meet up! PhD students especially!
Our train conductor just broke in over the PA system to announce this news live, in four languages. www.latimes.com/california/s...
An amateur codebreaker may have just solved the Black Dahlia and Zodiac killings
Two retired LAPD homicide detectives say that both notorious cases are solved -- with a single culprit -- thanks to the work of a novice sleuth.
www.latimes.com
December 23, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Our train conductor just broke in over the PA system to announce this news live, in four languages. www.latimes.com/california/s...
Reposted by Brett Hollenbeck
Star ratings are hard to ignore. Even when we’re looking for quality, our brains steer us toward cheaper stuff online. Christopher Mims explains why.
Buyer Beware: Star Ratings Actually Steer Us Away From the Best Shopping Deals
When reviewers consider prices while rating products, there’s a tendency to downgrade the highest-quality yet pricier items.
on.wsj.com
December 19, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Star ratings are hard to ignore. Even when we’re looking for quality, our brains steer us toward cheaper stuff online. Christopher Mims explains why.
Interesting reporting from @bencasselman.bsky.social, suggests Instacart is performing (or allowing) quite extensive personalized price discrimination.
Same product. Same store. Same time. But on Instacart, different customers may see different prices.
My story on a fascinating new experiment from @groundwork.bsky.social & @consumerreports.org and how the idea of a single price is breaking down in the digital age:
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/b...
My story on a fascinating new experiment from @groundwork.bsky.social & @consumerreports.org and how the idea of a single price is breaking down in the digital age:
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/b...
Same Product, Same Store, but on Instacart, Prices Might Differ
www.nytimes.com
December 9, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Interesting reporting from @bencasselman.bsky.social, suggests Instacart is performing (or allowing) quite extensive personalized price discrimination.
Reposted by Brett Hollenbeck
Acts done out of love, Nietzsche once said, stand beyond good and evil. If this is what art amounts to, we should be grateful to Alice Munro for reminding us to be properly frightened of it.
muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...
muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...
Project MUSE - The Mysteries of Love: On Alice Munro
muse.jhu.edu
November 24, 2025 at 3:01 AM
Acts done out of love, Nietzsche once said, stand beyond good and evil. If this is what art amounts to, we should be grateful to Alice Munro for reminding us to be properly frightened of it.
muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...
muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...
Reposted by Brett Hollenbeck
In honor of #GivingTuesday, my wife & I are matching donations (up to $20K) to the ASFOP Teega Wende Orphanage in 🇧🇫Burkina Faso🇧🇫, which supports over 200 orphans and we have supported for over a decade. 1/2
December 2, 2025 at 6:41 PM
In honor of #GivingTuesday, my wife & I are matching donations (up to $20K) to the ASFOP Teega Wende Orphanage in 🇧🇫Burkina Faso🇧🇫, which supports over 200 orphans and we have supported for over a decade. 1/2
I don't know if Texas deserves to be in the playoffs, but I do know what all the other playoff teams are hoping for.
November 29, 2025 at 7:17 AM
I don't know if Texas deserves to be in the playoffs, but I do know what all the other playoff teams are hoping for.
Reposted by Brett Hollenbeck
Some news: I will be spending this entire 2025-26 academic year located in Paris, visiting the local universities and participating in the research community here.
If you work in Paris or are just passing though in the next year, please reach out, I'd be happy to meet up! PhD students especially!
If you work in Paris or are just passing though in the next year, please reach out, I'd be happy to meet up! PhD students especially!
September 1, 2025 at 6:58 AM
Some news: I will be spending this entire 2025-26 academic year located in Paris, visiting the local universities and participating in the research community here.
If you work in Paris or are just passing though in the next year, please reach out, I'd be happy to meet up! PhD students especially!
If you work in Paris or are just passing though in the next year, please reach out, I'd be happy to meet up! PhD students especially!
Reposted by Brett Hollenbeck
This is an interesting set of academic research papers about the increasingly key debate of when AI should be used to label data (an expensive task we use humans for)
Yang et al show that AI answers are quite different than human, but Briggs finds it may be because AI is better than human RAs!
Yang et al show that AI answers are quite different than human, but Briggs finds it may be because AI is better than human RAs!
October 21, 2025 at 3:30 AM
This is an interesting set of academic research papers about the increasingly key debate of when AI should be used to label data (an expensive task we use humans for)
Yang et al show that AI answers are quite different than human, but Briggs finds it may be because AI is better than human RAs!
Yang et al show that AI answers are quite different than human, but Briggs finds it may be because AI is better than human RAs!
Reposted by Brett Hollenbeck
I think Southwest Airlines should revert its website to what they had in 1995
October 17, 2025 at 1:07 PM
I think Southwest Airlines should revert its website to what they had in 1995
Yes it is.
is hitting 3 home runs and striking out 10 batters in the NLCS the best game in baseball history
October 18, 2025 at 6:26 AM
Yes it is.
Reposted by Brett Hollenbeck
An absolutely unreal performance from Shohei Ohtani to complete the Dodgers' NLCS sweep 🧹
October 18, 2025 at 3:33 AM
An absolutely unreal performance from Shohei Ohtani to complete the Dodgers' NLCS sweep 🧹
Reposted by Brett Hollenbeck
Attention IO job market candidates:
Sometimes speakers in the CMA's external economics seminar series have to cancel at relatively short notice. We would love for these slots to go to JMCs to present their job market paper.
Drop me a message if you are interested or share with those who might be.
Sometimes speakers in the CMA's external economics seminar series have to cancel at relatively short notice. We would love for these slots to go to JMCs to present their job market paper.
Drop me a message if you are interested or share with those who might be.
October 16, 2025 at 8:12 AM
Attention IO job market candidates:
Sometimes speakers in the CMA's external economics seminar series have to cancel at relatively short notice. We would love for these slots to go to JMCs to present their job market paper.
Drop me a message if you are interested or share with those who might be.
Sometimes speakers in the CMA's external economics seminar series have to cancel at relatively short notice. We would love for these slots to go to JMCs to present their job market paper.
Drop me a message if you are interested or share with those who might be.
Reposted by Brett Hollenbeck
❗❗❗🚨🚨🚨 Next @cepr.org IO Virtual Gathering is taking place on NOVEMBER 7 at 2pm CET. 1st hr is dedicated to JM presentations by IO candidates graduating from Eur / UK schools. If interested, please submit a draft of your JMP & CV at: t.co/aUTPTWSten by OCTOBER 26! 🚨🚨🚨 ❗❗❗ #econjobmarket
October 14, 2025 at 9:10 PM
❗❗❗🚨🚨🚨 Next @cepr.org IO Virtual Gathering is taking place on NOVEMBER 7 at 2pm CET. 1st hr is dedicated to JM presentations by IO candidates graduating from Eur / UK schools. If interested, please submit a draft of your JMP & CV at: t.co/aUTPTWSten by OCTOBER 26! 🚨🚨🚨 ❗❗❗ #econjobmarket
Reposted by Brett Hollenbeck
This paper shows that you can predict actual purchase intent (90% accuracy) by asking an off-the-shelf LLM to impersonate a customer with a demographic profile, giving it a product image & having it give its impressions, which another AI rates.
No fine-tuning or training & beats classic ML methods.
No fine-tuning or training & beats classic ML methods.
October 10, 2025 at 2:32 PM
This paper shows that you can predict actual purchase intent (90% accuracy) by asking an off-the-shelf LLM to impersonate a customer with a demographic profile, giving it a product image & having it give its impressions, which another AI rates.
No fine-tuning or training & beats classic ML methods.
No fine-tuning or training & beats classic ML methods.
Reposted by Brett Hollenbeck
On one hand: don't anthropomorphize AI. On the other: LLMs exhibit signs of gambling addiction.
The more autonomy they were given, the more risks the LLMs took. They exhibit gambler's fallacy, loss-chasing, illusion of control...
A cautionary note for using LLMs for investing without guardrails.
The more autonomy they were given, the more risks the LLMs took. They exhibit gambler's fallacy, loss-chasing, illusion of control...
A cautionary note for using LLMs for investing without guardrails.
October 10, 2025 at 5:09 AM
On one hand: don't anthropomorphize AI. On the other: LLMs exhibit signs of gambling addiction.
The more autonomy they were given, the more risks the LLMs took. They exhibit gambler's fallacy, loss-chasing, illusion of control...
A cautionary note for using LLMs for investing without guardrails.
The more autonomy they were given, the more risks the LLMs took. They exhibit gambler's fallacy, loss-chasing, illusion of control...
A cautionary note for using LLMs for investing without guardrails.
Reposted by Brett Hollenbeck
ENO UNIVERSE playlist! A retrospective of Brian Eno’s body of work from 1972-1995 including his solo rock and ambient records and his collaborations with Bowie,Talking Heads, U2, Devo, Fripp, etc! All links and annotated tracklisting in the newsletter issue fluxblog.substack.com/p/fluxblog-5...
Fluxblog 566: ENO UNIVERSE
A retrospective of Brian Eno's music 1972-1995
fluxblog.substack.com
October 7, 2025 at 10:56 PM
ENO UNIVERSE playlist! A retrospective of Brian Eno’s body of work from 1972-1995 including his solo rock and ambient records and his collaborations with Bowie,Talking Heads, U2, Devo, Fripp, etc! All links and annotated tracklisting in the newsletter issue fluxblog.substack.com/p/fluxblog-5...
Reposted by Brett Hollenbeck
Here are your 10 -essential- AI prompts for academics ... make your life easy with help from @profserious.bsky.social profserious.substack.com/p/10-ai-prom...
10 AI Prompts for Academics
making those hard jobs a little easier ...
profserious.substack.com
October 5, 2025 at 7:56 AM
Here are your 10 -essential- AI prompts for academics ... make your life easy with help from @profserious.bsky.social profserious.substack.com/p/10-ai-prom...
Reposted by Brett Hollenbeck
Wild chart: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/u...
October 5, 2025 at 12:06 PM
Wild chart: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/u...
Reposted by Brett Hollenbeck
The videos from the NBER Economics of Transformative AI conference are well worth your time. www.nber.org/conferences/...
Economics of Transformative AI Workshop, Fall 2025
www.nber.org
September 30, 2025 at 12:39 PM
The videos from the NBER Economics of Transformative AI conference are well worth your time. www.nber.org/conferences/...
It looks like he didn't share it on Bluesky, so I will. @afinetheorem.bsky.social has written an excellent review article covering 7 recent books on the economics of AI that serves as an excellent overview of this topic. Highly recommended!
kevinbryanecon.com/BryanAIBookR...
kevinbryanecon.com/BryanAIBookR...
September 24, 2025 at 12:27 PM
It looks like he didn't share it on Bluesky, so I will. @afinetheorem.bsky.social has written an excellent review article covering 7 recent books on the economics of AI that serves as an excellent overview of this topic. Highly recommended!
kevinbryanecon.com/BryanAIBookR...
kevinbryanecon.com/BryanAIBookR...
I can confirm that the cuisine in France is on another level
September 16, 2025 at 10:15 AM
I can confirm that the cuisine in France is on another level
🚨*New research*🚨
Together with Tai Lam, Nicolas Padilla, and Anja Lambrecht: we study the impact of LLMs on user behavior across the web. We use a large and detailed panel of user-level online browsing from 2022 – 2023 and study how consumers' behavior changes after they adopt AI tools.
Together with Tai Lam, Nicolas Padilla, and Anja Lambrecht: we study the impact of LLMs on user behavior across the web. We use a large and detailed panel of user-level online browsing from 2022 – 2023 and study how consumers' behavior changes after they adopt AI tools.
September 11, 2025 at 12:21 PM
🚨*New research*🚨
Together with Tai Lam, Nicolas Padilla, and Anja Lambrecht: we study the impact of LLMs on user behavior across the web. We use a large and detailed panel of user-level online browsing from 2022 – 2023 and study how consumers' behavior changes after they adopt AI tools.
Together with Tai Lam, Nicolas Padilla, and Anja Lambrecht: we study the impact of LLMs on user behavior across the web. We use a large and detailed panel of user-level online browsing from 2022 – 2023 and study how consumers' behavior changes after they adopt AI tools.
Reposted by Brett Hollenbeck
saw this tweet and checked my calculator history and I'm losing it
July 24, 2025 at 5:57 PM
saw this tweet and checked my calculator history and I'm losing it
The GOAT
A huge moment -- Melvyn Bragg steps down from In Our Time after over a quarter of a century. What a programme and what a legacy! Just a model for how to make great, clever, engaging radio, and a twenty-seven-year experiment that proves there's a huge global audience for smart, scholarly programming.
Melvyn Bragg decides to step down from presenting In Our Time
After 26 years on the programme, the legendary presenter bids farewell to the series
www.bbc.co.uk
September 3, 2025 at 2:40 PM
The GOAT