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: Winter 2026
Management & Organizations
Are non-English speakers at a disadvantage when it comes to AI in business?
Assistant Professor Wesley Koo finds that AI-generated business content in Arabic and Chinese is consistently lower in quality—less actionable and creative—than English output, leading to weaker productivity gains for non-English speakers.
This gap is especially pronounced for more technical work tasks such as R&D.
Information Systems
Research explores new disparities and privacy concerns for telehealth
Assistant Professor Atiye Cansu Erol’s research finds that telehealth improves access to postpartum mental healthcare, but its effectiveness is shaped by physical privacy concerns. The findings suggest that telehealth policies should consider both home and community privacy dynamics to better serve vulnerable populations.
Economics
Replaying history to examine federal funding cuts to research
Professor Bhaven Sampat and colleagues simulate the effects of a 40% reduction in the NIH budget using grant-level data and links between NIH funding and FDA-approved drugs. They found nearly half of all drugs approved since 2000 are connected to research that would have lost funding.
Latest research
Are exposure bucks worth it? Evidence from Instagram
Andrew Ching finds that well-intentioned interventions can fail to produce lasting change because they do not adequately account for incentives, learning dynamics, or post-intervention behavior. Using Instagram's recently introduced “collaborative post” feature, Ching’s research quantifies the value of exposure to a brand's audience for small creators. He and his coauthor find that on average, a collaborative post increases a small creator’s following by only 277 followers -- roughly 1 week worth of their typical growth. These findings suggest that creators are likely better off seeking monetary compensation from brand collaborations rather than working for free in exchange for "exposure."
Democratizing Optimization with Generative AI
Tinglong Dai’s paper argues that generative AI can finally “democratize” mathematical optimization by making it accessible to non-experts through natural language interfaces that improve insight, interpretability, interactivity, and improvisation, what he calls the “4I” principles. Rather than replacing optimization, GenAI complements it by lowering modeling and usability barriers while optimization enforces rigor and constraints, enabling faster, more transparent, and more adaptive decision-making in real organizations.
Beyond Adoption: The Persistence of Conservation and Climate-Smart Agricultural Practices
Paul Ferraro’s research shows persistent use of conservation and climate-smart practices is much lower than experts expect, showing that persistence is far less common than initial adoption. He and his colleagues argue that policies overly focused on adoption incentives overlook economic, behavioral, and institutional factors that determine long-term environmental impact.
Structural Equity Option Pricing: Implications for Credit
Nicola Fusari and his coauthors use real-time equity option prices to learn about firm fundamentals such as default risk, using a structural model implemented with deep neural networks. Their estimates track credit market indicators while revealing the role of intermediary constraints in credit pricing, highlighting options as a forward-looking and relatively friction-free source of risk information. This approach contrasts with traditional corporate finance, which relies on infrequently updated financial statements rather than timely market signals.
Insuring Climate Risks in Integrated Markets
Deeksha Gupta and colleagues study climate insurance when regions are economically integrated through trade. They show that economic spillovers through trade linkages affect insurance demand. When climate shocks across regions tend to occur together, one region's insurance offsets the others. Conversely, when climate shocks across regions tend to occur at different times, insurance choices across regions complement each other. These cross-region interactions can lead to underinsurance traps—persistent low insurance even at fair prices. They can also cause an insurance market collapse in one region to spread to others. Government policies, such as insurance subsidies or discounts, can unintentionally worsen underinsurance.
The Quantity-Quality Tradeoff: How Incentives and Monitoring Shape Gender Differences at Work
Colleen Stuart’s study concludes that gender differences in how workers balance quantity versus quality are not fixed traits but are strongly shaped by organizational incentives and monitoring. Strong production incentives push men to prioritize quantity, while heightened monitoring leads women to emphasize quality. Importantly, the largest gender gaps emerge when incentives are strong and monitoring is weak, showing that standard organizational practices can unintentionally produce and amplify workplace gender inequalities even when they are formally gender-neutral.
Carey research in the news
Associated Press, Netflix to acquire Warner Bros. studio and streaming business for $72 billion—Christina DePasquale
Baltimore Banner, Before mass foreclosures, loan product looked good for Baltimore—Vadim Elenev
Baltimore Sun, Maryland restaurants hit by social media blasts that go beyond food—David Godes
Bloomberg, Private credit on the defensive again over ‘mark-to-myth’ study—Jeff Hooke
Business Insider, Big Tech's new rule for workers: show your work—Christopher Myers
New York Times, Obamacare is expensive. But so is all health insurance—Ge Bai
USA Today, Verizon outage warns of looming future danger—Javad Abed
Wall Street Journal, AI means the end of entry-level jobs—Rick Smith
Washington Post, I tested 80 Uber and Lyft rides and found a powerful way to save—Mike Luca
Awards and recognition
Professor Tinglong Dai was appointed the founding department editor for the “AI in Operations” department of Manufacturing & Service Operations Management. M&SOM is the premier journal in the field of operations management.
Assistant Professor Ali Fattahi received the 2025 INFORMS Energy, Natural Resources, and the Environment (ENRE) Best Publication Award in Environment & Sustainability for his paper “Flattening Energy-Consumption Curves by Monthly Constrained Direct Load Control Contracts.” This award recognizes outstanding research articles for exceptional originality, practical relevance, and impact on environmental sustainability.
Professor Christopher G. Myers was named the inaugural Peetz Family Professor of Leadership. Myers’ research looks at leadership challenges and opportunities in healthcare, particularly how people learn vicariously and share knowledge. Myers is also co-founder and faculty director of the Center for Innovative Leadership.