Research news from Johns Hopkins Carey Business School
Changing Business is the research newsletter of the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School faculty. Each quarterly issue explores impactful, cutting-edge research that shapes business, policy, and society. Carey is the business school of Johns Hopkins University, America’s first academic research institution. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Carey's faculty seeks to address the world's most pressing problems by applying a diversity of expertise in analytics, leadership, finance, marketing, and strategy to numerous topics including the business of health.
In this Issue: Spring 2026
Finance
Unequal gains and the unraveling of globalization
Associate Professor Dongho Song investigates how unequal gains from globalization erode political support for open trade. Learn more about his theoretical model.
Marketing
Authenticity or tokenism?
Assistant Professor Jessie Liu explores how companies authentically—and inauthentically—communicate their values to consumers, and how that messaging is received. Learn more about Liu’s research.
Economics
Low-income households feel the burn from cigarette taxes
Associate Professor Michael Darden examines how smokers adjust their household spending habits in response to cigarette taxes and who benefits from tax revenues. Learn more about Darden’s analysis.
Latest research
Stablecoins: A revolutionary payment technology with financial risks
Professor Alessandro Rebucci and colleagues discuss the approved GENIUS Act, which created a regulatory framework for U.S. dollar stablecoins, making compliant coins safer than unregulated ones. Based on an LLM-based survey of podcasters, they argue that stablecoins could transform payments by lowering costs, speeding settlement, and supporting cross-border transfers. However, risks remain, including runs, liquidity stress, cyber threats, illicit finance, crypto-market linkages, and bank disintermediation.
Incumbent’s advantage via expertise asymmetry: Revitalization of the Chinese pearl industry with livestreaming
Assistant Professor Wesley Koo and colleagues examine how China’s stagnant pearl industry revived through livestreaming, a technology that drastically altered the product channel. Incumbents usually get disrupted and displaced by technologically equipped entrants. However, in the Chinese pearl industry, incumbent pearl producers partnered with livestreamers, but relying on the latter’s streaming templates yielded little growth. Incumbents then integrated livestreaming, combining their pearl expertise with livestreaming to expand product meanings, designs, and the value proposition. In contrast, livestreamers promoted novelty but often relied on unverifiable claims due to a lack of industry expertise. Ultimately, incumbents were able to set new quality standards and lead industry revitalization without being displaced by entrants.
Screening for rate of ghost physicians in provider directories
Professor Dan Polsky and colleagues developed a new methodology to identify "ghost" physicians—doctors listed in Medicare Advantage provider directories but unavailable to patients. They found overall that 29% of listed primary care physicians were ghosts. HMO networks had more ghosts than PPO networks, while high-rated plans had fewer ghosts than low-rated plans. Unlike previous methods, this approach distinguishes truly unavailable physicians from those accessible but unseen due to other issues.
Designing enterprise AI systems: Hallucination, creativity, and moral hazard
Can AI hallucinations be a force for good? Professor Tinglong Dai studies how companies should design generative AI systems and employee incentives together. His model focuses on AI “temperature,” the setting that shifts output from reliable to more creative, but also more prone to errors. Higher temperature settings make human judgment more valuable in checking and improving AI output. The research shows that decentralization and strategic temperature choices can raise employee effort and improve enterprise outcomes in real organizations.
Carey research in the news
Associated Press, As electric bills rise, some states are focusing on the growing profits of utilities—Paul Ferraro
Baltimore Banner, There’s a convention center arms?—Christina DePasquale
Baltimore Sun, ‘Capacity equals cargo, cargo equals jobs’: $1B container terminal could reshape Port of Baltimore—Tinglong Dai
CNBC, Why pension funds are doubling down on private credit despite deepening cracks—Jeff Hooke
Health Affairs, Beyond the global budget: Maryland’s next chapter must engage clinicians—Dan Polsky
STAT, Everyone agrees AI scribes are increasing health care costs. No one agrees what to do about it—Tinglong Dai and Dan Polsky
The Dispatch, China’s AI embrace—Wesley Koo
The Economist, Foreign demand for American government debt is becoming much less reliable—Alessandro Rebucci
Wall Street Journal, Private-equity holdings look overvalued. Who's going to fix it?—Jeff Hooke
Awards and recognition
Assistant Professor Javad Abed and Dean Alex Triantis received Global Impact Awards from AACSB. Abed received an award for Teaching and Learning Excellence, and Dean Triantis received the Excellence in Service: Community Leadership Award.
Books
Johns Hopkins Carey Business School Professor David G. Smith and U.S Naval Academy Emeritus Professor W. Brad Johnson offer solutions for how leaders can eliminate ingrained inequities for women and fix a broken workplace system in their latest book, Fair Share. Fair Share is available from Harvard Review Press