Experience Stern | News & Events

More than 100 scholars from around the world gathered at NYU Stern for the 2012 International Society for Utilitarian Studies (ISUS) conference themed, “Utilitarianism: Exploring the Past, Looking to the Future.” Sponsored by NYU Stern, with generous support from the Citi Foundation and Daniel & Nancy Paduano, the ISUS conference featured discussions and research on utilitarianism and its historical development, as well as its present-day relevance in such fields as ethics, politics, law, economics and public policy.

Does focusing managers on the power they wield give rise to bad management? According to new research from professors at NYU Stern and Cornell, managers who have a heightened sense of their power treat others less fairly compared to individuals who see themselves as less powerful. But when it comes to self-perceptions of status, the roles reverse.

Excerpt from The New York Times Dealbook -- "'Fewer players in the mortgage origination business means higher profit margins for the remaining ones,' said Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, director of the Center for Real Estate Finance Research at New York University."

Excerpt from Financial Times -- "William Silber’s forthcoming biography of former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker sits alongside Walter Isaacson’s life of the late Apple chief executive Steve Jobs."

Excerpt from Xinhua -- "In the next 3 months, given the amount of refinancing that the central government needs, if they keep on borrowing at this rate, the spreads are going to grow further and further and the country is going to ask, as it happened to other countries before, for the help of the IMF."

Excerpt from HBS Working Knowledge -- "We outline a dividend signaling approach in which rational managers signal firm strength to investors who are loss averse to reductions in dividends relative to the reference point set by prior dividends."

Excerpt from EconoMonitor -- "In our new paper — 'The Making of America’s Imbalances' — we examine the evolution of sectoral financial balances in the US economy in the past 50 years using the Flow of Funds accounts. Specifically, we look at the changes in the financing flows among the different sectors of the US economy – households, business, government and the rest of the world."

Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal -- "It just is a bit of a struggle in the beginning to get enough out there where it starts to have a feel and starts to attract more people."

Excerpt from MSN Money -- "'Though every month contains a few (such expenses), none is ever budgeted for. In isolation, each expense seems exceptional . . . but in aggregate these expenses occur frequently enough that they put a large dent in an otherwise carefully monitored budget,' writes researcher Adam Alter..."

Excerpt from The Economist -- "The researchers set up an experiment in which made-up “prospective students” e-mailed 6,548 professors to set up a meeting. The researchers sought to answer a simple question: could something as small as the timing of a meeting increase discrimination against minorities and women?"

Excerpt from Forbes -- "'This is the way the way things should work in this kind of situation. It was a free market solution to a free market problem,' says Roy Smith, a finance professor at NYU Stern."

Excerpt from The New York Times -- "Of course, we should keep celebrating the talented, hard-working people who have succeeded in their businesses or careers. But the research provides an important moral lesson: that these people might also do well to remain more humbly mindful of their own good fortune."

Excerpt from Boston Globe -- "In Van Nieuwerburgh’s view, the bubble does have a cause. 'The Federal Reserve Bank, as well as Congress, were gradually, slowly but surely, relaxing their oversight of the financial sector,' he said."

Excerpt from Financial Times -- "In the short term this is good for everyone. Yoox will have a huge stock pop, and PPR will be able to scale their e-commerce operations and ramp up their skills and data very quickly. The long-term risk lies in the fact there may be a lack of differentiation because of working with a partner that also works with third-party brands, though the structure seems to mitigate against that."

Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal -- "It's social media that creates a larger ripple of knowledge and adds complexity to who hears what about whom."

Excerpt from Men's Health -- "To win back your happiness, learn how to savor again. Tom Meyvis, Ph.D., an associate professor of marketing at New York University, found some hints about how in a 2008 study designed to examine the effect of interruptions on pleasurable experiences."

Excerpt from Costa Rica Star -- "Romer proposes that the new city have a governing charter made up of the best political and economic rules from around the world. Partner nations would provide oversight, guidance and more."

Excerpt from CNN -- "Unlike China, India is a free-market democracy.... One way I certainly think the country can build its infrastructure aggressively is by involving the private sector more…. [The government] needs to pursue these public-private partnerships as actively as they can."

Excerpt from Forbes -- "Over the last dozen years New York University has held a marathon competition that now includes students, faculty and alums for the best startup ideas... Past winners include Dennis Crowley, cofounder of Dodgeball and Foursquare, and Ben ­Silberman, cofounder of Pinterest."

Excerpt from Forbes -- "In a series of five experiments, Blader and Chen demonstrate that it is status in the workplace, rather than power, that motivates people to act fairly. 'In other words,' says Blader, 'although power and status are often thought of as two sides of the same coin, they in fact have opposite effects on the fairness of people’s behavior.'"

Excerpt from The New York Times Magazine -- "In accounts of men in battle, there is an incredible adrenaline rush from group-versus-group conflict. The fervor and passion of partisans is clearly rewarding; and if it’s rewarding, it involves dopamine; and if it involves dopamine, then it is potentially addictive. Put that together with the repeated finding that extreme partisans are happier than average and centrists are less happy, and the picture emerges that just as a bird gotta fly, a fish gotta swim — a human gotta be a part of some group competing with other groups to fully flourish and feel alive."

Excerpt from Life's Little Mysteries -- "'A rivalry in this kind of context is apt to benefit these swimmers' motivation and performance,' said Gavin Kilduff, an assistant professor at New York University who studies the causes and consequences of rivalry. In fact, the swimmers could be boosting each other's performances by as much as 2 percent."

Excerpt from Bloomberg -- "The expectations for the stock have gotten ahead of the performance."

Excerpt from New York Daily News -- "'Mobile apps are enabling new businesses to emerge and thrive,' Ghose said. 'You can potentially have your entire business resolving around apps.'"

Excerpt from Los Angeles Times -- "'Ron Paul is part of a long tradition of challenging the central bank's right to exist,' Sylla said. 'I'm suggesting there is more to the Paul bill than just Congress' legitimate need to know what the Fed is doing.'"