NYTimes: “Generative artificial intelligence — the technology upending many industries with its ability to produce and crunch new data — has landed on Wall Street. And investment banks, long inured to cultural change, are rapidly turning into Exhibit A on how the new technology could not only supplement but supplant entire ranks of workers. The jobs most immediately at risk are those performed by analysts at the bottom rung of the investment banking business, who put in endless hours to learn the building blocks of corporate finance, including the intricacies of mergers, public offerings and bond deals. Now, A.I. can do much of that work speedily and with considerably less whining. “The structure of these jobs has remained largely unchanged at least for a decade,” said Julia Dhar, head of BCG’s Behavioral Science Lab and a consultant to major banks experimenting with A.I. The inevitable question, as she put it, is “do you need fewer analysts?””
WSJ: “As businesses consider how to tackle generative AI, the once trendy idea of a startup-style innovation group is fading for some…Some companies are rethinking their labs as they prepare for the new wave of AI development. Walmart closed its Store No. 8 and shifted to a “Four in a Box” method, which brings together employees with business, product, technology and user experience roles to identify and solve challenges through tech. The approach has allowed Walmart to more quickly deploy new solutions across the whole business, such as adding early-morning and late-night options to its in-home delivery service. Assigning innovation efforts across business units makes sense for Walmart, said Bhardwaj. “It’s very difficult for any one single team to be the subject matter expert and the tech expert at the same time,” she said.”
Douglas Irwin: “Any restraint on imports also acts, in effect, as a restraint on exports. The converse of this proposition is also true: when a government undertakes policies to expand the volume of exports, it cannot help but to expand the volume of imports as well.” [via CafeHayek]
WaPo: “There are at least three kinds of swing voters…First, there are the switchers: those who backed one major party in a presidential election but then shifted to the other four years later…The second kind of swing voters are the occasionals: those who alternate between voting and not voting…The third group of swing voters are the third-partiers: those who go from voting for a major party to a third party or vice versa.” More from Economist.
Mint: “A benign way to tackle India’s concentration of capital would be to expand the base of equity holders to include every household. This can be achieved by a new approach to the privatization of public sector units (PSUs). Imagine a direct transfer of selected PSU shares to ‘Jan Dhan’ demat accounts opened for families that do not yet own any equity at all. Have-not beneficiaries would get dividends from enterprises that were publicly owned to begin with, track the market value of their assets and possibly start enlarging their stock portfolios through multilingual online tools. Of course, the digital divide will need to be bridged and much regulatory hand-holding would be required; as of now, a heavy compliance burden—nominee registration, KYC, etc—threatens to freeze the holdings even of aware investors. Eventually, however, stock grants could give all citizens a literal stake in wealth creation. And the more inclusive India’s growth is, the more sustainable it’ll be.” A sort-of Dhan Vapasi!
WSJ: “The “made for advertising” sites (MFA)…attract significant spending, and not just because of rapidly reloading ads: MFA publishers win roughly 15% of automated online advertising spending, or $10 billion in annual ad revenue, according to an estimate late last year from the Association of National Advertisers, or ANA, a marketers’ trade group.”
