Experience Stern | News & Events

Excerpt from Fashionista -- "'These are difficult, complicated and costly logistics businesses,' says Lawrence Lenihan, cofounder and co-CEO of fashion-focused venture operating firm Resonance Companies. 'Their customers love them for convenience and selection, but I'm not sure that there is a profitable sustainable business at the end of the journey. They seem to be trying to emphasize the high end of the market with watches and jewelry because the margins are the highest and the logistics cost per contribution margin are the lowest. But then they are [facing] a whole host of competition, including the brands themselves who have the credibility of physical presence along with new products.'"

Excerpt from Strategy + Business -- "This smartphone-enabled, venture capital–fueled phenomenon cries out for a biography, a taxonomy, and an impact analysis. In The Sharing Economy, Sundararajan supplies all of those things. While much of the book will be familiar to someone who follows events in this world — he spends a good bit of time explaining how platforms such as Airbnb and Lyft actually work — it’s a useful and fundamentally optimistic attempt to explain where the sharing economy came from, and where it’s going."

Excerpt from Racked -- "'Luxury brands cannot "cheapen" their brands by frequent discounts and price promotions,' says NYU professor of business and marketing Tülin Erdem. 'It is inconsistent with their brand identity since if they do so their brand equity will be diluted. Most luxury brands have a sense of exclusivity and reflect a unique style, [and] too many people using these [discounts] will damage exclusivity and uniqueness.'"

Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal -- "New York University finance professor Aswath Damodaran said ROIC is a lazy shortcut for executives, because companies should have visibility into the cash flowing from projects on a more granular basis. 'I could write a paper on perverse ways you could destroy your company by raising your ROIC,' he said."

Excerpt from Project Syndicate -- "There are no politically easy solutions to the global economy’s current quandary. Unsustainably high debt should be reduced in a rapid and orderly fashion, to avoid a long and protracted (often a decade or longer) deleveraging process. But orderly debt-reduction mechanisms are not available for sovereign countries and are politically difficult to implement within countries for households, firms, and financial institutions."

Excerpt from IPE Real Estate -- "Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, part of the three-member expert group, thinks the government is rightly cautious about including unlisted infrastructure investment in the SWF [sovereign wealth fund]. 'Most of the investment needs for infrastructure are in the developing world, and that’s also where most of the risks are,' he says."

Excerpt from Euro Weekly News -- "Chilean actor and co-writer Martin Bacigalupo said when collecting his prize, 'This independent film has given me the opportunity to work with freedom to express through my character the things I wanted to say.'"

Excerpt from The Atlantic -- "That we tend to overestimate our own responsibility for our successes is not to say that we shouldn’t take pride in them. Pride is a powerful motivator; moreover, a tendency to overlook luck’s importance may be perversely adaptive, as it encourages us to persevere in the face of obstacles. And yet failing to consider the role of chance has a dark side, too, making fortunate people less likely to pass on their good fortune."

Excerpt from Forbes -- "Brilliant research by economists from the Stern School of Business and Harvard Business School, Alexander Ljungqvist, Joan Farre-Mensa, and John Asker, entitled 'Corporate Investment and Stock Market Listing: A Puzzle?' compares the investment patterns of companies in the public sector and private sector. It turns out that the lag in investment is a phenomenon of the public firms, not the privately owned firms."

Excerpt from The Atlantic -- "In a paper that will soon be published in the journal Sociological Science, Greenberg and Fernandez write that the students were significantly more likely to accept jobs found through networking—done either through alums of their program or their own social connections—even if those jobs came with lower pay than offers arriving through more formal channels, like on-campus recruiting. The choice, the researchers suggest, may be driven by students’ interest in their own career development, and a belief that taking a job with more networking opportunities would give them a professional edge, even if it came at the cost of compensation."

Excerpt from ABC -- "...Also, an update on Ryan Fant and Nayeem Hussain from New York and Keen Home, their line of home enhancement products that Robert Herjavec invested in during season six."

Excerpt from RT -- "The ride-sharing market has seen a lot of street firing, competitive tactics, even in the United States. A couple of years ago, we had Uber and Lyft booking--or allegedly booking--rides in each other's services to try and flood the network with a lot of demand. And so, I think you're seeing something similar play out in India now, where Uber is in a sort of heated competitive battle with the domestic giant Ola."
 

The Eighth Annual NYU Stern Volatility Institute Conference will bring together academics, practitioners and regulators to discuss the latest research and ideas on "Commodities and Emerging Market Risks."

Excerpt from Consumer Reports -- "For such illegal sales to stop, the regulations that govern sale prices will have to be improved—a slow process since pricing is regulated at the state level. Meanwhile, though, all the bad publicity and penalties could cause merchants to tone down their marketing tactics, says Vicki G. Morwitz, a marketing professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business."

Excerpt from Bloomberg -- "In a 2012 article, a trio of social psychologists found that liberals had a less accurate perception of the moral views of conservatives than conservatives had of liberals. One of the authors, Jonathan Haidt, suggests over email that liberals and conservatives increasingly view each other through the stereotypes that have traditionally divided city and country folk. The urban stereotype of the rural is that they’re mired in idiocy."

Excerpt from The Huffington Post -- "This is to be expected, says Arun Sundararajan, a professor at New York University’s Stern Business School and the author of the upcoming book The Sharing Economy. Sundararajan likened ClassPass’ new subscription options to mobile data plans, saying: 'We used to pay a fixed amount for unlimited internet on our phones, and now have moved to tiered plans. It’s a natural part of the evolution of a business like that.'"

Excerpt from Quartz -- "Given India’s price-sensitive buyers, there are high chances of online retailers losing customers once discounts are discontinued. 'If they do not offer deep discounts, Indian consumers will switch back to offline retailers, which seem to be always on sale,' Ghose of New York University said. 'I do not think this cultural behavior of the average Indian consumer will change even with a substantial increase in the average disposable income in India.'"

Excerpt from Digiday -- "'We want to be where prospective students are and share with them what they want to know about being an NYU Stern undergrad,' said Erin Potter, executive director of communications at NYU’s Stern School of Business. 'Snapchat is a way for prospective students to connect with current students on a common platform, and geofilters are kind of like a check-in or a passport stamp that allows users to mark a moment.'"

Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal -- "One challenge is to break down your expenses according to whether they are ordinary and recurring or exceptional and unusual, says Mr. Alter. 'What you’ll start to notice is that so-called exceptional expenses account for a large chunk of your budget,' and need to be acknowledged as recurring spending, he says."

Excerpt from BBC News -- "'We are now in the early stages of a different model of organising economic activity,' says Prof Arun Sundararajan at New York University. Indeed he argues the sharing economy taps into a basic human need. 'We are wired for social connection. The appeal [of sharing] is to integrate some semblance of human interaction into our economic activities.'"
 

Excerpt from Project Syndicate -- "...in an environment of low long-term interest rates and deficient short-term aggregate demand (which means there is little risk of crowding out the private sector), it is a mistake not to relax fiscal constraints for investment. In fact, the right kind of public investment would probably spur more private-sector investment. Identifying such investment is where today’s debt debate should be."

Excerpt from Vox -- "Evidence suggests that failure to recognize luck's role in success increases tax resistance by reinforcing the natural sense of entitlement to income produced by the fruits of one's own labor."

Excerpt from Chief Learning Officer -- "Baruch Lev, director of the Intangibles Research Project at New York University Stern School of Business, has stated that 'people are the most important asset of most companies.'"

Excerpt from Clear Admit -- "'There is no other textbook on business and human rights out there, which we viewed as a major gap in the literature,' says Baumann-Pauly. 'We want to push business and human rights teaching at business schools in general, and having a book out there helps us start those conversations.'"

In his address, Mr. Immelt will reflect on the global economy and the evolving role of organizations in a world that is more connected and that presents unique challenges and opportunities.