Business & Entrepreneurship

Researchers from Olin Business School explore the complexity of tariffs as a trade tool in a global economy in a new paper. The research also establishes a supply chain model to explain those effects. The model proposes that, in some cases, the effects were foreseeable when accounting for strategic multi-party interactions and competition.

Two Olin Business School researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are highlighted in a new federal report issued March 27 showing how U.S. farmers — facing a surge of weather events and disease outbreaks — can increase production and revenues with innovations produced by government-funded agricultural research.

The Waffle House index refers to a clue into the level of devastation wrought by a natural disaster — disasters like Hurricane Florence, which made landfall at Wrightsville Beach, N.C., early Sept. 14. Panos Kouvelis, director of the Boeing Center for Supply Chain Innovation at Olin Business School, has taught it for years.

Where machine learning meets spring planting and big data intersects with farming big and small, two Olin Business School researchers have devised a computational model so farmers and seedmakers could take the guesswork out of which particular variety of, say, soybean to plant each year.

Consumers can pretty easily discern how automobile manufacturers and their suppliers make money, for example. But fewer understand how their $20 co-pay for anti-cholesterol medication gets split between the drugmaker, the insurance company and the pharmacy benefit manager. New research from Olin Business School aims to explain.

Two U.S. retailers made moves this week to regulate their gun sales based on principle — moves that legislators failed to make in recent years despite public outcry following each incident in a line of mass-shooting tragedies. A pair of Washington University in St. Louis experts say that these actions represent “an expansion of corporate social responsibility,” even if the retailers financially may suffer amid something of a consumer backlash.

In the first test of detailed consumer-buying habits by categories at more than one chain store selling groceries, a team of business school researchers, led by Washington University in St. Louis, found that shoppers weren’t monogamist or bigamist but rather polygamist in their choice of outlets. In fact, it turns out that grocery categories such as dessert toppings, motor oil, candles and refrigerated ethnic foods were some of the leading products that lure customers to separate stores.

In a concentrated, continuing effort to link Washington University in St. Louis academic research to everyday business practice, the 10th annual Olin Award recognizes an Olin Business School faculty member who joined two University of Pennsylvania professors in crafting a computer model to guide managers who need to forecast behaviors of newly acquired customers.

Each fall, doctors stress the importance of getting a flu shot, but on-time delivery of the vaccine can often be tricky, with shortages during times of peak demand. Research co-authored by Olin’s Fuqiang Zhang proposes a new tweak to the vaccine supply chain that could reduce patient wait time.

An undergraduate success story: Jolijt Tamanaha spent her last weeks of junior year at Washington University in St. Louis making a deal to sell a startup she co-founded called Farmplicity — an online marketplace that matches restaurants with local farmers — founded in a course through Olin Business School called The Hatchery.