Faculty News

Prof. William Baumol's "cost disease" theory and new book, "The Cost Disease," are highlighted

The Washington Post logo
Excerpt from The Washington Post -- "William Baumol, who is, amazingly, still an active economist at age 90 and just released a book on these very issues, realized in a series of papers in the 1960s (many coauthored with future Princeton President William Bowen) that industries that didn’t see productivity increases might still see costly wage increases. 'The insight that Baumol and Bowen had was that there are some industries where productivity growth is very likely and some where it’s not,' Robert Archibald, an economist at the College of William & Mary, explains."
School News

MBA/MPA student and Army veteran Lindsey Melki praises Christine Quinn's plan to assist veterans

The New York Times Logo
Excerpt from The New York Times -- "Ms. Quinn was standing beside a woman who had faced much more harrowing situations – Lindsey Melki, an Army veteran who flew a Black Hawk helicopter in Iraq in 2007 and 2008 – to announce what she would do as mayor in her first 100 days in office to help veterans. 'We have not done enough — the Bloomberg administration has not done enough," Ms. Quinn, a Democrat, said. Among her proposals was creating a 'welcome home' center in Times Square that would offer counseling, medical, job and housing services for veterans, as well as satellite support centers in each borough. Ms. Melki praised the idea of having a 'one-stop shop' to help veterans navigate the services available to them."
Faculty News

Prof. Arun Sundararajan on how the sharing economy is changing our patterns of consumption

WIRED logo
Excerpt from WIRED -- “'We need to clearly understand how the sociology of sharing evolves,' says Arun Sundararajan, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Businesses whose recent research focuses on the sharing economy. Sundararajan says that the act of sharing a possession such as your car or apartment changes the meaning of that thing."
Faculty News

Dean Peter Henry on the importance of equal access to education in America

Excerpt from NPR -- "Americans are big believers in equal access to opportunity and letting outcomes fall where they may if there's a level playing field. And right now there isn't a level playing field and I think the statistic that captures it best is the fact that if you're born in the United States in the top 25% of the income distribution, you have an 85% chance of going to college. If you're born in the bottom 25% of the income distribution, you have an 8% chance of going to college. That is not equal access to opportunity. In the private sector, if we want to be a country that continues to grow, then we've got to take joint responsibility and the private sector ought to say, 'Gee, we've got a role in actually making higher education more accessible to the masses in order to level the playing field, because, again, the key equalizer is education. That's what transforms people's lives."
Faculty News

Prof. Thomaï Serdari discusses the market for luxury handbags

Marketplace Logo
Excerpt from Marketplace -- “'There is a constant exchange in a very small group of people who tend to actually increase the prices,' Serdari says. 'We have alligator bags that have hit the market that go as high as $130,000, which is absurd.' Soaring prices are driven by a strong demand from luxury consumers in Asia, Serdari says."
Faculty News

Prof. Rosa Abrantes-Metz explains why unusual currency patterns should catch the eye of regulators

Bloomberg logo
Excerpt from Bloomberg -- “'There are some patterns in currencies that are very similar to what I have seen in other markets, such as the way the price-fixings’ effects disappear so often by the following day,' said Rosa Abrantes-Metz, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, whose August 2008 paper, 'Libor Manipulation?,' helped trigger the probe into the rigging of benchmark interest rates. 'You also see large price moves at a time of day when volume of trading is high and hence the market is very liquid. If I were a regulator, it’s certainly something I would consider taking a look at.'”
Faculty News

Prof. Richard Sylla on the planned merger of Bats Global Markets and Direct Edge Holdings

Bloomberg logo
Excerpt from Bloomberg TV -- "I think the SEC should look at this and say, well, you know, there were two smaller rivals to NASDAQ and NYSE, they're getting together now. They're going to be right in between NASDAQ and the NYSE in terms of trading, so in some sense the competitive environment might be getting stronger, not weaker, by this merger."
Faculty News

Prof. JP Eggers on Steve Ballmer's departure from Microsoft

Nightly Business Report logo
Excerpt from NBR -- "Certainly when investors are lacking confidence in a CEO and that CEO leaves, there's going to be a bump in the stock price. When we think about what some of the major reasons why you would see a big bump like Microsoft, there's often the sense that there's a big amount of value in the organization, whether it be cash or cash flows from things like Windows and the Office suite and there's a concern that the CEO is going to waste that money, going to spend it frivolously trying to chase down some new opportunity and so when that cash and that treasure is kind of protected, the investor is certainly going to react very positively to that kind of a change."
Faculty News

Prof. Nouriel Roubini on the economic impact of political unrest in Italy

AFP logo
Excerpt from AFP -- "'Our most probable scenario is elections in early 2014 but we do not exclude even sooner than that. The markets are reasoning in a similar way,' Roubini said in an interview with La Repubblica daily."
Faculty News

Prof. JP Eggers on the challenges facing the next CEO of Microsoft

Bloomberg logo
Excerpt from Bloomberg TV -- "This new CEO is going to have a really difficult time because there's two challenges they're facing. One is how to keep the existing core business profitable and keep on milking that for all it's worth. And at the same time, completely tear down and re-vision what they're going to do in mobile and operating systems from that perspective. And that's a very big challenge to try and do both and will require a very unique skill set to try and do that."
Faculty News

Prof. Arun Sundararajan on the need for a sharing economy "safe harbor"

Crain's New York logo
Excerpt from Crain's New York Business -- "'There's a whole government structure that has evolved to handle this analog way of sharing,' said Arun Sundararajan, a professor at New York University's Stern School of Business who has written on the peer-to-peer economy. 'The complexity of the city is greater. But the need and demand [for sharing services] is also greater, and whether we'll lead the way or it will take longer [to adapt] depends on which of these forces dominate.'"
Faculty News

Prof. William Silber's book, "When Washington Shut Down Wall Street," is highlighted

Barron's logo
Excerpt from Barron's -- "With the outbreak of World War I at the end of July 1914, Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo ordered the New York Stock Exchange closed in order to prevent massive liquidation of U.S. stocks by British investors seeking to raise cash. (At the time, the Treasury Secretary was the de facto central banker; although legislation to create the Federal Reserve had been passed the previous year, it was not yet up and running.) The U.S. then was operating under the gold standard, so the proceeds of sales of American assets could be readily converted to gold, which could flee the country. (This account comes from When Washington Shut Down Wall Street, a 2006 book by William L. Silber, an economics professor at New York University and—full disclosure—a professor of mine in grad school.)"
Faculty News

Prof. Anindya Ghose on the future of BlackBerry

CNC World logo
Excerpt from CNC World -- "The dropout rate, the switching rate of people from BlackBerry to Apple and Android is very high and as early adopters of BlackBerry start ditching those phones for the smarter ones, they are going to lose their install base very quickly. They already lost a lot. At some point when the install base comes down to single digits, that’s as good as bankrupt."
Faculty News

Prof. Richard Sylla on last week's technology glitch at Nasdaq

Associated Press logo
Excerpt from AP TV -- "I think the lesson of these recent trading problems...is that everybody who's using them has to check on the software and the people have to be highly trained who are pressing the buttons to execute the trades or the algorithms they build in the trading strategies. So a lot more work has to go into making sure those things don't have errors in them. I don't think the problem can go away entirely, but I think some of it is avoidable and it will cost them a little money, but they need to spend that money because the whole market system is involved in this and if people lose confidence in the markets, then these very important markets won't function as well as they should and our economy will be the worse for it."
Faculty News

Prof. Michael Spence on the US economy

Bloomberg logo
Excerpt from Bloomberg -- "Other economists, including Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive officer of Pimco, Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University and Nobel laureate Michael Spence, aren’t as pessimistic. 'The American economy still has great strengths in terms of innovation,' said Spence, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. 'It’s very flexible and adjusts relatively quickly.'”
Faculty News

Dean Peter Henry's book, "Turnaround," is highlighted

Excerpt from Jamaica Observer -- "The [Jamaican] Government, we submit, would be wise to heed the advice of world-famous Jamaican economist Professor Peter Blair Henry, dean of the Stern School of Business at New York University. Professor Henry in his new book Turnaround: Third World Lessons for First World Growth (2013) states: 'Although there is not one single path to prosperity, one thing leaps out of the evidence -- discipline.'"
School News

Inspire Possible

“‘An Education in Possible’ isn’t just a tagline; it’s an experience,” Larry Arbuthnott, a student in the second year of the MBA/MPA dual degree program, explained to incoming MBA students at the 2013 LAUNCH, the incoming full-time MBA students’ introduction to the NYU Stern MBA experience.
Press Releases

Ellen Seidman to Serve as 2013-2014 NYU Stern-Citi Leadership & Ethics Distinguished Fellow

NYU Stern’s Citi Leadership & Ethics Program, sponsored by the Citi Foundation, has appointed Ellen Seidman, former director of the US Treasury Department’s Office of Thrift Supervision, as its 2013-2014 Citi Leadership & Ethics Distinguished Fellow.
Faculty News

Prof. Richard Sylla on the recent trading glitch at Nasdaq

Wall Street Journal logo
Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal -- "While some traders and economists shrug their shoulders and write off recent problems—such as this week's options trading snafu or the 2010 'flash crash'—as the price of progress, others say the problems are becoming so widespread that exchanges and big firms need to be held to a higher standard. 'It shows that corners are being cut and not enough is being spent on testing these systems,' said financial historian Richard Sylla of New York University's Stern School of Business."
Faculty News

Prof. Richard Sylla on the electronic trading error at Goldman Sachs

Marketplace Logo
Excerpt from Marketplace -- “'What happened was the computer program mistakenly started to sell options at like one dollar an option, when in fact the market price was higher than that,' says Richard Sylla, an economics professor at New York University. 'Basically, Goldman sold a lot of options cheaply. And if they have to buy them back, they will lose money because they will have to pay the market price for them.'”
Faculty News

Prof. Edward Altman's Z-score research is featured

Excerpt from Motley Fool -- "In the late 1960s...Edward Altman, published a formula that would change finance: the Altman Z-score. Altman researched nearly 70 bankrupt manufacturing companies' financial statements pre-bankruptcy to determine what these companies had in common. This research gave rise to an easy-to-use equation that could predict bankruptcy."
Faculty News

Prof. Viral Acharya on outgoing Reserve Bank of India Governor Duvvuri Subbarao's performance

Wall Street Journal logo
Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal -- “'He did very well to refuse the pressure of lowering interest rates at the time when government deficits were mounting last year,' said Viral Acharya, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business."
Faculty News

Prof. Michael Posner on human rights lessons in business school

The Economic Times logo
Excerpt from Economic Times -- "'Different components of human rights like freedom of speech, discrimination, harassment at work, security practices and supply chain issues need to be integrated in different courses at business schools, and it could vary from region to region,' [Posner] says."
Faculty News

Prof. Luke Williams on teaching entrepreneurship

Business News Daily Logo
Excerpt from Business News Daily -- "'Anyone teaching has to believe that given the right tools and opportunities, every student can be a member of the entrepreneurial class,' [Williams] said. 'You can't change personality, but you can change key habits.'"
Faculty News

Prof. Richard Sylla on the challenges the new Federal Reserve Bank president faces

Fox Business logo
Excerpt from Fox Business -- “'The Fed has shown itself to be the central banker of the world. The waters are not exactly calm right now so it’s more than likely that there will be some tests for the new Fed chief,' said Richard Sylla, an economist and financial historian at NYU."