Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is typically used by medical professionals to visualize the internal structures of the human body. By using MRI to study the brain, Ming Hsu, assistant professor of marketing, found a method to characterize how the different regions of the brain function in concert to enable people to anticipate and respond to competitors' behavior.

Walmart may serve millions of customers, but suppliers who are lucky enough to have Walmart as their customer have one more reason to smile—in the spirit of the chain store’s famous “happy face” logo. According to supply chain research by Panos Patatoukas, assistant professor of accounting, suppliers with few but major customers enjoy higher performance—demonstrated by bottom line profitability rates and stock market valuations—than firms with a less concentrated customer base.

A real estate investor owns a big office-building complex and decides he needs $10 million to invest in energy-efficient improvements. He goes to the bank, where the loan officer says, “Sorry, we don’t do that kind of thing.” When it comes to underwriting commercial real-estate loans, energy efficiency hasn’t been a part of the conversation – but it should be, according to Energy Efficiency and Commercial-Mortgage Valuation, by Nancy Wallace, Dwight Jaffee, and Richard Stanton. Watch the video.

A new book edited by three Berkeley-Haas housing experts evaluates the genesis of the housing market bubble, the global viral contagion of the crisis, and the policy initiatives undertaken in some of the major economies of the world to counteract its disastrous effects. “Unlike most other books on the global crisis, Global Housing Markets: Crises, Policies, and Institutions focuses on the housing sector in the context of the financial and institutional structures that shaped the experience of individual economies,” says Cynthia Kroll, executive director for staff research and a senior regional economist at the Fisher Center.

A new book co-edited by Professor David Vogel brings together a collection of essays on the interaction of policymaking in Europe and the U.S. Transatlantic Regulatory Cooperation: The Shifting Roles of the EU, the US and California explores a wide range of policy areas, including motor vehicle standards, water regulation, chemical regulation, climate change, and biotechnology, showing in each case how these three political jurisdictions have affected one another’s regulatory policies and priorities.

Watching a horror movie can scare you into selling your stocks earlier than you would have otherwise. That’s the frightening evidence shown in a series of studies by Associate Professor Eduardo Andrade and Chan Jean Lee, a PhD candidate, both in the Haas Marketing Group. Their study explains that the scared investor’s early decision to sell stocks happens through “social projection.” Watch the video.

Business schools are churning out a new breed of MBA graduates who want to use their leadership skills toward effecting social good. The University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business is the first business school studying “multi-sector leadership,” according to Nora Silver, adjunct professor and director of the Center for Nonprofit and Public Leadership at Berkeley-Haas.

More than 10 years after electricity deregulation, the nuclear power industry has decreased greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 40 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and saved $2.5 billion a year as a result of operating more efficiently over the past decade, according to a new study by Lucas Davis and Catherine Wolfram.

The new regulatory banking standards called “Basel III” slightly decrease but do not eliminate systemic risk in the banking system, according to research by Prof. Dwight Jaffee and Asst. Prof. Johan Walden. Furthermore, the study suggests successful mortgage markets in Western Europe provide useful models for mortgage reform in the US. Because these healthier markets do not contain public lenders such as the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Professor Jaffee proposes the elimination of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as a critical step toward healing the domestic economy. Watch the video.

Innovation drives markets. But when innovation is left unharnessed and spreads too fast, regulation can’t keep up and innovation implodes. Jo-Ellen Pozner studies organizational legitimacy and corporate governance and analyzed how the diffusion of innovative practices contributed to the 2008 financial crisis causing “terminal isomorphism” and the mortgage market meltdown. Watch the video.

How likely are you to repurchase a stock you sold? New findings from Professor Terrance Odean about investor behavior conclude that trading patterns involving previously owned stock are driven by a desire to avoid or at least limit anticipated regret. In other words, investors are likely to repurchase a stock if the sale boosts feelings of satisfaction. See the video.

Foreclosures depress communities and economies. But how does one measure the direct impact of foreclosures on the overall economy? The problem is complicated by the fact that other economic shocks – such as job losses – could be jointly driving up foreclosures and driving down economic growth. Haas economist Atif Mian finds answers by exploiting legal differences across states in how mortgage defaults are handled. See the video.

As the battle over “network neutrality” continues between supporters and Internet service providers (ISPs), a new study reveals compelling reasons to preserve a free and open world wide web. Professor Benjamin Hermalin found that the purported benefits of tiered Internet service don’t materialize because over time, a tiered system slows down overall delivery speed.

Have you ever been upset with your boss? Perhaps he or she overlooked an accomplishment or didn’t give you a raise that you thought you deserved. According to a study by labor relations expert David I. Levine, retaliating against one’s boss is more acceptable to employees if the retaliation is an act of omission or inaction, rather than active efforts to harm an unfair boss.

The debate over the veracity of global warming may be judged not by pure science but rather, perception. Being in a warm room can make the idea of global warming seem more likely, according to Clayton Critcher, assistant professor of marketing.

Access to information technology benefits female research scientists more than their male counterparts, increasing research productivity and collaboration, according to a new study by Assistant Professor Waverly Ding. The study concludes that IT is an “equalizing force” for researchers and suggests innovations in IT may contribute to scientific productivity. See the video.

Adjunct Professor Henry Chesbrough, executive director of the Haas Center for Open Innovation, rethinks the concept of open innovation to tackle a new economy. In his new book, Open Services Innovation (Jossey-Bass, January 2011), Chesbrough offers the tools to apply service-focused innovation to avoid what he calls "the commodity trap." See the video.

You are running a political campaign with limited resources. How should you spend your money to beat your rival? You are a military commander trying to win a battle. How should you deploy your soldiers to gain an edge? You are a company competing against a rival for market share. How should you allocate your marketing budget most effectively? Professor John Morgan, who studies competition in online markets, worked with Yahoo! Labs to design a social video game help answer those questions.

When he took his behavioral economics research out of the lab and into the world of Internet domainers and pornographers, Professor John Morgan found that business professionals in industries typically considered “shady” are better collaborators and more “trusting, trustworthy, and altruistic” than college students whom he tested in a lab setting. See the video.

When customers are allowed to pay what they want for a purchase, knowing a portion of the payment will go to charity, they become rather generous, according to a study by Associate Professor Leif Nelson, Haas Marketing Group. Nelson says the concept of “shared social responsibility," a term coined by the study’s authors, may provide the sustainability component often lacking in current corporate social responsibility strategies.

Professor David Vogel has been honored with the Aspen Institute’s Faculty Pioneer Award for Lifetime Achievement in recognition of his seminal work in the field of corporate social responsibility. Vogel was selected from more than 30 nominees for the award, which has been called the "Oscars of the business school world" by the Financial Times.

Professor Robert Edelstein, the Maurice Mann Chair in Real Estate and co-chair of the Fisher Center for Real Estate & Urban Economics, proposes three forms of stimulus to increase personal income and ultimately turn workers back into consumers.

Privatizing the US mortgage market and eliminating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the best ways to work toward stabilizing the US housing finance system, says UC Berkeley real estate professor and economist Dwight Jaffee. “Fannie and Freddie must have a graceful burial as the first step toward creating a private and efficient U.S. mortgage market.”

In order to prevent inflated credit ratings and an economic crisis similar to that in 2008, the government should eliminate rating-contingent regulation, according to Assistant Professor Marcus Opp, Haas Finance Group. “If the government didn’t have these rating-contingent regulations, I believe the ratings would automatically become more informative.”

Successful senior leadership depends on the collective effectiveness of other leaders throughout the organizational hierarchy, according to a study co-authored by Professor Jennifer Chatman. The research found when leaders across levels of an organization consistently support a particular change initiative, the organization is likely to realize the performance benefits of the change more quickly and more completely than if less consistency exists.

As federal legislators and regulators consider taxing utility companies for carbon emissions, Assistant Professor Lucas Davis suggests a fixed pricing structure on natural gas service that would protect consumers and satisfy utility companies. “Eighty percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from the production and consumption of energy,” says Davis, “How utilities price energy is important when thinking of a carbon tax policy.”

Stock options have rewarded many thousands of employees, particularly those working in the information technology industry, with income that far outstrips their normal salaries. It’s become an article of faith in Silicon Valley that those rewards create incentives for employees to work harder and smarter, in turn rewarding the companies that lavish options on the workforce with better performance and greater shareholder value. But does that assumption stand up to careful scrutiny? The answer: It depends on who is receiving the options, according to a new study.

Why do entrepreneurs flock to startup meccas like the Silicon Valley or Boston? Professor and Chair in Real Estate Development Robert Helsley has studied entrepreneurial clustering and showed in a recent working paper that density or thickness of local input markets translates into faster productivity and higher profitability.

How can managers and executives in knowledge-based industries maximize their effectiveness in a dynamic world? What are the tools they need when they operate in turbulent ecosystems with rapid innovation cycles? In the second edition of her book about "super-flexibility," Senior Lecturer and management behavior expert Homa Bahrami offers dynamic "recipes" for leadership success in innovative tech firms.

Accounting Professors Patricia Dechow and Richard Sloan have received the American Accounting Association’s inaugural Distinguished Contribution to Accounting Literature Award for their research on earnings manipulation. The study helped fuel an explosion of subsequent governance-accounting studies and created a significant and enduring impact on the discipline and regulatory reform.