Experience Stern | News & Events

Some 50 academics, practitioners and policymakers gathered at NYU Stern on April 15 for a roundtable discussion on “The Inside Scoop on Securities Litigation for 2013.” Industry experts discussed new litigation trends and anticipated the SEC’s main areas of focus this year.

Excerpt from Bloomberg -- “'There are hundreds of benchmarks with different features, but a common issue with some of the indices not based on actual transactions is the potential conflict of interest by the administrator who represents the market players and submitters themselves,' said Rosa Abrantes-Metz, an economist with New York-based consulting firm Global Economics Group Inc. and a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business."

Excerpt from Project Syndicate -- "The world’s developed economies, of which the United States is by far the largest and systemically most important, face a range of difficult political and social choices. President Barack Obama’s proposed US budget acknowledges and addresses those choices and tradeoffs directly and fully for the first time in the post-crisis period."

Excerpt from PR Week -- "Aral demonstrated how social influence – defined as the extent to which one's peers change the likelihood that one engages in a particular behavior – is the primary driver of influence today through social conversations that have usurped the traditional influence power of organizations."

Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal -- "Whether rising rates lead to rising stock prices also will depend on why rates increase, notes Aswath Damodaran, a finance professor at New York University's Stern School of Business who has looked at the relationship between Treasurys and stocks. If interest rates rise because the economy is improving, stock prices might indeed go up. But if it's because inflation fears are rising, stocks could fall, he says. 'Interest rates don't rise for no reason,' he says."

Excerpt from GigaOm -- "NYU Stern School of Business professor Arun Sundararajan nicely summed up the risks of ignoring user intent leading up to Facebook’s IPO last year. He compared annoying — and possibly offending — users with ads at every possible turn with playing the stock market and only thinking about making money."

Excerpt from Business Day -- "Information flows both ways: executives can learn from investors, too. Stock price movements around earnings announcements reveal a lot about investors’ growth expectations and their perceptions of management’s credibility."

Excerpt from Reuters -- "While a downturn in the economy and a return to simplicity may be fueling the trend and the apps that support it, Sundararajan believes demand will continue, even if the economy bounces back strongly. 'In many ways, it's just as much about getting access to greater variety and quality,' he said."

Excerpt from Marketplace -- "It’s supposed to go 'Ready, aim, fire.' But in Silicon Valley, there can be a rush to get out new technology. Luke Williams, who teaches innovation at NYU’s Stern School of Business, says that can cause problems. 'So what they’re really doing is just the firing and the aiming,' he says. 'And they’re forgetting about the ready part.'"

Excerpt from WNYC -- "Adam Alter, assistant professor in marketing at NYU's Stern School of Business and the author of Drunk Tank Pink: And Other Unexpected Forces that Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behave, explains some of the unconscious workings of our brain that explain why pictures of light bulbs make us more creative and pink paint on the wall is calming."

On Wednesday, April 10, MBA students celebrated the final weeks before graduation at the 2013 Bowling Night with President John Sexton and Dean Peter Henry.

Excerpt from CKGSB Knowledge -- "The average Chinese consumer is far ahead in terms of mobile device adoption and usage. They’re also ahead in terms of not just downloading of apps, but also retention. One of the fundamental problems (of retention rates for apps in Europe and in the US) is that there are a lot of apps out there that get downloaded, only a fraction of them actually get used consistently. Whereas, in the Asia-Pacific region (South Korea, China, Japan, etc.) the average consumer is significantly ahead not just in the adoption of the mobile, but also in the adoption of apps and continued usage."

Excerpt from Bloomberg Businessweek -- "Ehrlich says Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania has an economics course that broadens students’ perspectives by treating neoclassical economics as one approach among many, while the Business and Society Program at NYU’s Stern School of Business offers a series of four required courses placing business in a larger societal context."

Excerpt from the National Post -- "'Some form of "digital trust" is essential for sharing-based business models, especially those that involve exchange between peers,' wrote Arun Sundararajan, a New York University professor and sharing economy researcher, in an email to the Post."

Excerpt from the Los Angeles Times -- “'It could be the tip of the iceberg,' Joshua Ronen, a professor of accounting at New York University's business school, said Tuesday as details from the scandal were emerging. 'But if it is just isolated events, then that by itself is just a glitch.'”

Excerpt from Barron's -- "Titled 'A Rose Among Thorns,' Roubini argues that the U.S. economy may have its problems but 'among advanced economies, the U.S. is in the best relative shape, followed by Japan, where Abenomics is boosting confidence.'"

Excerpt from Bloomberg TV -- "I think the US should be very concerned about Europe because obviously it has a great feedback effect on US companies, US demand. Europe is one of our biggest customers. And the uncertainty about the stability of the Eurozone and the Eurozone banks actually feeds back to the US economy. That level of uncertainty is very high right now following the events in Cyprus and so there's a great deal of concern about the stability of the European financial system and the European banks, even in some of the major economies."

Maria Bartiromo, with Suresh Sani, Undergraduate College Dean Geeta Menon and Professor Batia Wiesenfeld, was this year’s 2013 Sani Lecture keynote.

As part of NYU Stern's Leadership Development Initiative, coordinated by the School's Leadership Development Team, Marla Capozzi, head of McKinsey & Company's Innovation practice, spoke with Luke Williams, executive director of Stern's Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, about how leaders can foster innovation.

Excerpt from MarketWatch -- "But using round numbers made J.C. Penney seem less like a discount store à la Target, which sells sports jackets at $49.99 instead of $50, experts say. 'A high-end restaurant will charge $32 for a steak because it makes it seem more luxurious than a steak for $31.99,' says Vicki G. Morwitz, a professor of marketing at the Stern School of Business at New York University.'"

Excerpt from The New York Times -- "'Luis Cabral, a Portuguese economist and professor at New York University, said the court still went beyond a legal ruling and delivered what amounted to 'a significant political statement,' which means that 'effectively, government expenditure cannot be reduced.' In terms of Portugal’s budgetary commitments, Mr. Cabral added, 'when you put it all together, it’s clear that things do not add up.'"

Excerpt from CNBC -- "'It's hard to see this as humane,' Frank said. 'Seniors are facing hardships economically with cost-of-living increases, especially in health care.'"

Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal -- "Speaking Monday at a panel at New York University’s Stern School of Business, Mr. Volcker conceded that fixing and restructuring the country’s complex financial system is 'a very difficult process… that’s not going to happen in a hurry.' That is because 'attitudes haven’t changed,' and politics have ensnared the drafting of some regulations. Three years ago, the Dodd-Frank omnibus reform measure, was signed into law."

Excerpt from Bloomberg -- "Alcoa grew at the beginning of the 20th century to dominate U.S. industry as an integrated monopolist alongside John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil and Andrew Carnegie’s U.S. Steel Corporation, according to George David Smith, a professor of business history at New York University’s Stern School of Business who has consulted for Alcoa."

Excerpt from the Financial Times -- "Yes, there is a place for research but it has to be kept in its place. It can’t be the criteria for hiring or promotion. Teaching ability should be the primary factor. Students are entitled to the best teachers that schools can secure, but not the best researchers. They don’t need the person who invents theoretical models to teach them those models. They need someone to teach them who is a good transmitter of information."