Graduates of the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Wayne State University have started or acquired businesses at double the national average rate among college graduates since 1996. In a study titled “Embracing Entrepreneurship: The University Research Corridor’s Growing Support for Entrepreneurs in Michigan and Throughout the World,” researchers report that entrepreneurs who graduated from the three schools were 1.5 times more successful in keeping those businesses going longer than five years. Read the report.

Michigan residents with diabetes are being sought for a large-scale study testing the effectiveness of commonly prescribed diabetes drugs. The drugs must be prescribed in combination with metformin, the most common first-line medication for treating type 2 diabetes. U-M has been chosen as one of 37 centers nationally to conduct the study that will involve about 5,000 participants, who must have been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in the past five years. They may be taking metformin, but no other diabetes medication when they enroll, and they must be willing to take a second drug with metformin during the study. Diabetes medications throughout the study will be managed free of charge; there will also be at least four medical visits per year. Call 855-455-6559 or visit https://grade.bsc.gwu.edu.

For decades, dentists have urged all adults to schedule preventive visits every six months. But a new U-M study finds annual cleanings may be adequate for adults without certain risk factors for periodontal disease while people with a high risk may need to go more often. The study, published in The Journal of Dental Research, suggests that the frequency of dental visits for cleanings and other preventive services should be tailored to each person’s risk factors for periodontal disease. “If you are high risk, it is much more important for you to be seen frequently, but for the low-risk people it’s not,” says Dr. William V. Giannobile, the study’s lead author and the chairman of the department of periodontics at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. “The take-away is not that you don’t need to see the dentist, it’s that each patient needs to be treated in their own individual way,” he adds.

Proper negotiation techniques can not only garner a better salary, but set precedence for work within the company. “Employers will look at how you negotiate your own salary to see how you will negotiate on behalf of the company,” says Shirli Kopelman, a professor and researcher at the Ross School of Business.

Middle-age car buyers are more important to the auto industry than ever, according to a new study by U-M’s Transportation Research Institute. Adults in the 55-to-64-year-old age group were 15 times more likely to buy new vehicles than 18-to-24-year-olds in 2011, the study found. In a separate study released in 2012, the institute found that the percentage of 19-year-olds with a driver’s license had fallen below 70 percent, its lowest point in nearly 30 years. Collectively, the results show the industry’s success is still predicated on its ability to connect with older buyers. “The probability of buying a vehicle per driver is highest for people between 55 and 64 years of age,” says Michael Sivak, who led the study, which relied on data from R.L. Polk. “That is probably surprising to many people because they think of much younger people being the target audience.”

For those Americans unnerved by the popularity of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, a new study from the University of Michigan will come as little surprise. And it might even add some smugness. The gist of the study: Narcissists “like” Facebook and Twitter. A lot. And social media in general “reflect and amplify” our culture’s deepening narcissism. The study found that narcissistic college students prefer Twitter, using it as “a megaphone” for their lives. Older adults, meanwhile, use Facebook more as a mirror, the U-M researchers said. They curate their image, using frequent status updates and then gauging how people react to their updates, photos, etc.

As you’re probably aware, the share of income in the U.S. held by the top one percent has grown considerably in recent decades. The latest data by inequality experts Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez estimates that the top one percent has gone from taking home a low of 8.87 percent of total income in 1975 to taking 19.82 percent in 2011. And it was even higher pre-crisis; their 2007 share was 23.5 percent. Unsurprisingly, the countries where inequality grew the most also saw the biggest cuts in top marginal tax rates for wealthy earners. The researchers cite University of Michigan tax expert Joel Slemrod’s explanation that lower rates reduced incentives for tax avoidance, which likely led top earners to report more income than they normally would. However, this doesn’t jibe with the fact that when you include capital gains income, a major avoidance mechanism, the increase in income shares barely changes at all.

Much of Corporate America is awash with cash. According to S&P Capital IQ, 202 members of the Standard and Poor’s 500-stock index have $1 billion or more in cash. Cash holdings grew to $1.5 trillion, or 22 percent of assets, in 2011. Why do companies have so much cash? A new study, co-authored by U-M finance professor Amy Dittmar, suggests financial managers who have gone through a soul-searing downturn—such as what we saw during the 2007-09 bear market—have a special reverence for cash. “CEOs who were previously employed at a firm that experienced financial difficulties have a cash-to-assets ratio that is 3.1 to 4.4 percentage points higher compared to firms whose CEOs did not experience financial difficulties,” the study states. And while this may have helped their companies through hard times then, it may not be the correct strategy for less hard times like now.