Experience Stern | News & Events

Excerpt from Quartz -- "Fixing these problems is an enormously complex undertaking, but it’s a necessary one. Bangladesh’s garment industry has helped millions to escape poverty, and it’s not for the best if brands pull out of the country. The best solution, Labowitz and Baumann-Pauly write, is 'shared responsibility,' in which all parties acknowledge the scope of the problem, allow space for honest discussion, and act together to fix it."

Excerpt from BuzzFeed -- "'There’s no doubt that the problems affect their "brand promise" of being more than fast food,' said Irv Schenkler, professor of management communication at NYU Stern."

Excerpt from The Atlantic -- "In the wake of Rana Plaza, factory safety programs meant to improve fire and building protocols were agreed upon by politicians and several major brands such as Costco, Walmart, and Macy’s. But according to the NYU report, these agreements only cover 27 percent of factories and 45 percent of laborers who work for some of the largest and most advanced factories in the country. And for the most part, even the factories that fall under the purview of these programs haven’t completed the reforms necessary to make them safe. The holdup, the study finds, is a battle over who should pay for expensive electrical and structural upgrades—the factories or the brands that buy from them."

Excerpt from Commercial Observer -- "Under the extension, the existing rules continue. However, in the interim, lawmakers are contemplating a bill which would address the integrity and other noncontroversial portions of the reforms that were on the table. Whether or not this bill gains traction, the EB-5 negotiation process must resume as early as possible in early 2016 given that the extension will expire in only nine months and passing any major legislation in a presidential election year will pose a major challenge."

Excerpt from the Financial Times -- "Scott Galloway, founder of research firm L2 and professor of marketing at New York University’s Stern Business School, expects [social shopping] will continue to underwhelm because social networks are for social activities, not shopping. 'Social still plays a huge role in retail or a brands’ business, but it’s just not where the actual retailing gets done,' Mr Galloway says."

Excerpt from Dagens Næringsliv -- "New requirements for renewable energy will require massive investment. States and development banks have limited capacity. Much of the money must therefore come from the private sector, says Van Nieuwerburgh."

There are more than 7,000 garment factories in Bangladesh producing for the global fashion industry, 65% more than previous estimates. More than half of these factories are small and medium-sized indirect sourcing factories, meaning their workers produce for foreign brands through other, larger factories. These factories operate in the shadows. The result is that millions of workers in subcontracting factories fall outside the protection of international safety-improvement initiatives, and are especially vulnerable in a country where unsafe working conditions are a chronic problem. While global brands, governments in North America and Europe, and international lenders have announced commitments of more than US$280 million for the garment sector in Bangladesh, to date, only a handful of factories have been fixed.

Excerpt from Commercial Observer -- "'The U.S. real estate investment is a rainy-day fund and hedge against both risks about the Chinese market slowdown but also uncertainty about fears of being swept up in the anti-corruption campaign,' said Joseph Foudy, an economics professor at New York University. 'Keeping a percentage of their net worth outside the country and safe is more important than a particular financial return on their real estate investment.'"

Excerpt from Inc. -- "And small businesses could feel the pain more acutely if interest rates go up too rapidly, says Thomas Cooley, professor of economics and former dean of the New York University Stern School of Business. 'A lot of new jobs are generated by small and mid-sized businesses, and if the interest rate increases dramatically, it could slow investment to this sector,' Cooley says, adding that the increase in interest rates is also likely to further strengthen the dollar. That in turn could hurt exports."

Excerpt from WIRED -- "The Copyright Royalty Board is supposed to set fair rates that reflect songs’ hypothetical market value if a truly open marketplace existed. 'The numbers they have chosen in the past have been wildly controversial, but in a world of zero marginal costs, it is difficult to set rates that make obvious sense,' says William Greene, a New York University professor, who researches the economics of the entertainment and media industry. 'The CRB is casting about for a set of numbers that cause as little disruption as possible.'"

Excerpt from WalletHub -- "While I think that there are reasons to be optimistic about technological innovation that will drive growth in the U.S., these gains will be modest for the time being. As for underlying problems, although there are a couple areas of disquietude, they do not seem large enough to trigger a downturn in the near future. External factors are a significant source of uncertainty for the U.S. in the coming year, the greatest of which is the risk of a bigger slowdown in the Chinese economy. While I think the chances of this are high and that it would have a significant impact on the U.S., that impact would contain offsetting features."

Excerpt from Reuters -- "'It is a market that is a regulatory thicket designed to protect the taxicab business,' said Aswath Damodaran, professor of finance at New York University's Stern School of Business."

Excerpt from Diario Del Puerto -- "... the Indian economist Pankaj Ghemawat, a professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University and at the IESE Business School in Barcelona, ​​has provided information that would show that only 2% of all phone calls in the world are international; only 9% of investments are global; only 15% of all Facebook friends are foreigners; less than 20% of data traffic on the Internet is between different countries and exports account for only 20% of world GDP. ... According Ghemawat, the pace of globalization is not as fast and the overall level of global connectivity has not yet returned to its historical high of 2007."

Excerpt from Bloomberg -- "I think part of the reason we use forecasts [is that] it makes us feel better. I think that's basically it. It's like comfort food. You know it doesn't work, but you still listen to it. It's great storytelling."

Excerpt from Bloomberg -- "One of the dilemmas that the Fed is facing right now is that there is a bit of an asymmetry. Suppose that they move too fast, too soon. Then the economy could be stalling, maybe because of external shock... and then going back to conventional monetary policy is a mistake. Suppose they were a bit more cautious and you start later and more slowly. If the economy is too strong and inflation picks up, you ... can tighten a little bit faster. So this asymmetry between the risk of moving too soon or too late suggests that, actually, you want to be cautious."

Excerpt from TheStreet.com -- "For GOP candidates, the Fed will likely be more important as a talking point than anything else. History has shown that while Republicans may like to talk a big game on Fed oversight, they haven't been overly eager to act in the Oval Office. Under Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, 'I don't think we see a lot of big change with respect to the Federal Reserve,' said White."

Excerpt from Bloomberg -- "'Suppose that you are a bit more cautious and you start moving slowly and the economy becomes too strong and inflation picks up, you’ll be behind the curve but still you can tighten a bit faster,' he said in an interview in Dubai. The dilemma facing the Fed is that 'labor market data suggest it’s time to start hiking, but there is no sign of inflation in the economy,' Roubini said."

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.'"

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."

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."

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.'"

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.'"

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."

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.'"

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."