Faculty News

Professor Richard Sylla highlights the benefits of low interest rates for the economy

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Excerpt from The New York Times -- "'If we keep inflation under control, maybe we’ll enter a period like the ’50s,' said Richard Sylla, a financial historian at New York University and co-author of 'A History of Interest Rates.' 'Those were normal rates, and they were accompanied by a slight amount of inflation, 1 or 2 percent. That worried people then, where now it’s a target to be reached.'"
Faculty News

Research on bond defaults from Stern's Salomon Center for the Study of Financial Institutions is cited

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Excerpt from CNBC -- "Certainly, defaults on high-yield bonds have been rising. The trailing 12-month default rate on high-yield bonds was 2.3 percent in the third quarter, up from 1.97 percent as of the middle of the year, according to the NYU Stern Salomon Center for the Study of Financial Institutions, which expects the rate as of Sept. 30, 2016, to reach 4.3 percent."
Faculty News

Professor David Yermack discusses his research on the impact of blockchain technology on corporate governance

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Excerpt from CoinDesk -- "Authored by New York University (NYU) professor David Yermack, the second working paper by the US non-profit explores how the widespread adoption of distributed ledgers could impact investors, shareholders, auditors and other participants in corporate governance. Citing recent proofs-of-concept at major stock exchanges, the NBER paper explores a future where blockchains are used to record equities in corporations, providing real-time insight into corporate share transfers."
Faculty News

Professor Richard Sylla discusses inflation and interest rates

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Excerpt from The New York Times -- "'If we keep inflation under control, maybe we’ll enter a period like the ’50s,' said Richard Sylla, a financial historian at New York University and co-author of 'A History of Interest Rates.' 'Those were normal rates, and they were accompanied by a slight amount of inflation, 1 or 2 percent. That worried people then, where now it’s a target to be reached.'"
Faculty News

Professor Edward Altman is interviewed about junk bonds

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Excerpt from Marketplace -- "[Junk bonds is] such a negative term, junk, and in some ways misleading, said Edward Altman, a professor at the New York University Stern School of Business. 'We’ve got junk mail, junk food, junk yards,' Altman said, but many companies that issue high-yield debt are growing and adding jobs, 'And, indeed, this is a very good way for them to raise capital, especially, of late, in the low interest rate environment.'"
Faculty News

In an op-ed, Professor Adam Alter examines the psychology behind ultramarathon running

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Excerpt from The New Yorker -- "Faced with a string of these superficial decisions, many people become introspective. They begin to question whether their lives are meaningful. At the same time, they sense that meaningfulness comes from the margins of human experience—that it flowers during times of great joy, pain, frustration, or hardship. For this reason, even those who are privileged feel compelled to court new challenges. Some of us decide on a month without alcohol, or undertake an act of charity, or set out on a ten-kilometer run. Ashprihanal Aalto, Trishul Cherns, and Michael Bielik pursue meaningfulness in a different way: by running, running, and running some more."
Faculty News

Professor Richard Sylla shares his views on the history of bank regulation in the United States

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Excerpt from WNYC -- "In 1998, President Bill Clinton signed the industry-backed repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, a 1930s law which barred overlap between commercial and investment banks. After that repeal, Sylla said, the phrase-du-jour was 'financial innovation.' 'We were in an era of de-regulation,' Sylla told me. 'There was a notion that the 1930s had regulated us too much and therefore the solution was to deregulate.'"
Faculty News

In an op-ed, Professor Michelle Greenwald examines several specialized food trends in Paris

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Excerpt from Forbes -- "Over the past few years, the trend that started with Paris-based Ladurée and Pierre Hermé innovating with an unprecedented range of exotic macaron cookies and fillings, has escalated geometrically to include new innovators who are 'blowing out' other traditional sweet categories in previously unimaginable flavors, designs, colors, and textures. Many of these pioneers already have beautiful cookbooks. Paris food retail is getting more and more specialized, and customers are making the effort to travel considerable distances and happy to wait in line to buy a single-type of product, as long as it’s the best of it’s kind and there’s a 'wow' factor and sense of discovery. Here are 7 of the best sweet category dedicated shops, with an eighth example in the condiment category: French mustard."
Faculty News

Professor Alvin Lieberman comments on Disney's marketing of "Star Wars" to both men and women

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Excerpt from Reuters -- "Beyond featuring women, the company appears to be tailoring some of its messages to females, said Alvin Lieberman, a marketing professor at New York University's Stern School of Business. In a four-minute comedy sketch on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live,' Harrison Ford and Chewbacca resolved a purported feud with an endearing, hug-it-out moment. 'That is not what your high-adrenaline, action-oriented male population is looking to see,' Lieberman said of the video, which has been viewed more than 1.1 million times on YouTube. 'It sells the characters.'"
Faculty News

Professor Robert Engle discusses how the anticipated Federal Reserve rate increase impacts volatility in financial markets

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Excerpt from Bloomberg -- "We are expecting a lot of volatility this week, but in fact we saw it last week, I think. In the run up to the Fed's decision, I think a lot of pressures that were already building in the high-yield bond market really came to a head on Friday, and we had a pretty big bloodbath ..."
Press Releases

NYU Alumni Earn 15 Golden Globe Nods

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Fifteen members of the NYU alumni community were among the nominees in nine categories when the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced its nominations for the 73rd Annual Golden Globe Awards on December 10, 2016. All nominees heralded from the Tisch School of the Arts with the exception of Aziz Ansari, an alumnus of the Stern School of Business.
Faculty News

Professor Anindya Ghose discusses how employers use big data to recruit talent

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Excerpt from BusinessBecause -- "'It is not just about cutting direct costs,' says Professor Anindya Ghose, director of NYU Stern’s Center for Business Analytics. 'It is about identifying high-performing employees, predicting their next performance milestone, and carving out their trajectories and rewarding them.'"
Faculty News

In an op-ed, Professor Nicholas Economides argues that net neutrality spurs innovation and benefits society

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Excerpt from Fortune -- "Network neutrality has contributed very significantly to the fast and vigorous growth of the high technology sector in the US while ensuring a level playing field in competition. Hopefully the rules will be upheld by the Court of Appeals."
Faculty News

In a video interview, Professor Jonathan Haidt discusses his engagement in a policy working group on poverty

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Excerpt from PBS NewsHour -- "Haidt convened a group of policy people from across the political spectrum to talk about issues of concern to each side, and discovered that one issue everyone really cared about was poverty. The group worked together for more than a year to produce a report, released last week, entitled Opportunity, Responsibility and Security: A Consensus Plan for Reducing Poverty and Restoring the American Dream."
Faculty News

Professor Brad Hintz identifies challenges ahead for global banks in the face of new regulations

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Excerpt from Bloomberg -- "When you did the survey, not only were the results that the ROEs weren't going to meet their cost of capital. But what was surprising was the analysts and the institutional investors believe that the Street has done a very adequate job cutting compensation. So those two don't really tie together, do they? So... you saw a demand among institutional investors for more strategic change."
Faculty News

Professor Scott Galloway comments on the Dow-Dupont merger

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Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal -- "The companies are targeting $3 billion in cost savings. DuPont said it plans to cut about 10% of its global workforce before the actual merger. 'These three companies will not have more employees than two companies did,' said Mr. Galloway. 'This is going to be a lesson in human resources.'"
Faculty News

In an op-ed, Research Scholar Brandon Fuller shares a practical approach to addressing the global refugee population

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Excerpt from City Journal -- "Over any useful timeline, the full integration of a large share of Syrian refugees into second countries like Jordan or third countries like the United States is a nonstarter. The zonal approach is a practical and politically realistic way to offer job opportunities to refugees—Syrian or otherwise. Doing so would enhance the economic prospects of the countries that are home to the world’s refugee camps while strengthening the post-conflict prospects of refugees and their homelands."
Faculty News

Professor Alvin Lieberman comments on Nike and Under Armour's partnerships with NBA players

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Excerpt from OZY -- "Nike ... opted not to renew Curry’s contract when it came up two years ago — right before his title-winning MVP performance. 'You make a decision on an athlete, and then keep your fingers crossed,' says Lieberman. Now, Under Armour has Curry through 2024, with CEO Kevin Plank publicly saying he wants to create a 'billion-dollar basketball business' around the diminunitive point guard. For now, Nike still holds 95 percent of the $5.2 billion basketball shoe market, and Lieberman is skeptical one athlete is enough to shift the balance of power."'
Faculty News

Professor Adam Alter explains the benefits of having a unique name

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Excerpt from Yahoo -- "The more unusual your name, the more likely you are to see and interact with the world differently. 'It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy that begins with an unusual name and ultimately leads to unconventional or creative thinking,' Adam Alter, a professor of psychology and marketing at New York University who has studied how names can affect the way people are perceived, told Yahoo Parenting earlier this year. All of which is just logical: When you grow up with a name that nobody else around you has, you become used to, and thus less afraid of, deviating from the norm."
Business and Policy Leader Events

Webinar on Machine Learning for Business Executives

Roy Lowrance
NYU Stern's Master of Science in Business Analytics program will host a webinar, "Introduction to Machine Learning for Business Executives," led by Dr. Roy Lowrance, managing director of the NYU Center for Data Science on Thursday, December 10.
Faculty News

Professor Arun Sundararajan comments on the lack of protection for workers in the sharing economy

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Excerpt from The Atlantic -- "... It’s possible that even once new regulations kick in, they won't be as protective as some might hope, which means that businesses still bear some responsibility in caring for workers, says Arun Sundararajan, a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business. 'We don't have a rich and deep government-provided social-safety net. If we look to the government as the place the social-safety net is going to come from, we'll fall short.'"
Faculty News

Professor Richard Sylla explains why companies have made fewer new investments

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Excerpt from Marketplace -- "'Investment is one of the drivers of economic growth,' Sylla said. 'But ever since the financial crisis, companies have been reluctant to make new investments. And that's partly responsible for our slow economic growth.' Sylla said investor pressure is particularly acute for manufacturing firms such as Dow and Dupont; they face global competition, in a way American tech companies don't."
Faculty News

Professor Aswath Damodaran explains why he believes Yahoo is a holding company

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Excerpt from CNBC -- "I think of Yahoo as a very simple company to think about. It's really a holding company. Right now it's like a closed mutual fund with investments in two other companies. I think about the operating assets as just a distraction. It's less than 10% of the value of the company, and that's all Ms. Mayers has been in control of .. over the last four years. So the reality is, I think if you strip it down to basics, you take the operating assets out... it's really two holdings. And it's only taxes that determine what the value of the company should be."
Faculty News

Professor Priya Raghubir discusses Weight Watchers' new "Beyond the Scale" campaign

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Excerpt from MarketWatch -- "More than 90% of people said they believe it’s better to eat a well-balanced diet than to use diet products in a 2015 survey of 2,000 Internet users by market research company Mintel. ... As a result, there has been a shift from touting the explicit weight-loss benefits of fitness and food products to promoting an overall lifestyle that is sustainable, said Priya Raghubir, the chair of the marketing department at New York University’s Stern School of Business."
Faculty News

Professor Aswath Damodaran reacts to e-commerce company Flipkart's utilization of credit from commercial banks

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Excerpt from Business Standard -- "Aswath Damodaran, professor of corporate finance and valuation at the Stern School of Business at New York University, said, 'I think it is not only dangerous for any young, start-up, and especially with huge growth potential and large losses today to borrow money. By borrowing money, they run the risk of default and in the process, they are putting their growth potential at risk. Why do that?'"