Experience Stern | News & Events

Excerpt from Bloomberg Businessweek -- "I spoke today with Lawrence J. White, who helped develop the original Justice Department horizontal merger guidelines as chief economist of its Antitrust Division under President Reagan in 1982 and 1983. 'This is a well-deserved award,' says White, who is a professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business. The theories of Tirole and others probably influenced antitrust regulators to put conditions on Comcast’s acquisition of NBC Universal, White says."

Excerpt from The New York Times -- "'So now, when there is a major merger that involves important vertical relationships, the authorities take a more nuanced view,' said Mr. White, who served as chief economist of the antitrust division of the Justice Department in the early 1980s. 'And we have Tirole in part to thank.' Mr. White said a recent example came in 2011, when the government conditioned Comcast’s acquisition of NBCUniversal on the terms of a deal that made NBCUniversal’s content available to Comcast’s rivals."

Excerpt from Bloomberg -- "'There was too much complacency about the euro zone getting out of its crisis,' said Nouriel Roubini, chairman of Roubini Global Economics LLC in New York. 'The center of tension is another downturn in the euro zone.'"

Excerpt from The Hill -- "Many observers fear that ICANN could soon be subject to the heavy-handed influences of governments that do not share the values that have led to the innovation, flexibility and openness that has hitherto characterized the Internet. The United States' proposed withdrawal is the opportunity for a rethinking of ICANN's governance structure. Moreover, we believe that there is a reasonable solution to ICANN's longstanding accountability problem that would mitigate concerns of government influence."

Excerpt from PBS NewsHour -- "There’s no clear way of predicting that people are going to lose their jobs in the long run. There’s definitely going to be a shift, in the same way that a century ago, like, 25, 30 percent of the United States worked in agriculture. Today, it’s less than 1 percent."

Excerpt from The New York Times -- "A handful of academic researchers have studied what goes on inside our heads when credit cards are in our wallets, and even people who do not carry a balance each month are prone to overspending for a variety of reasons. ... A study in 2008, titled 'Monopoly Money,' featured a gift card denominated in dollars. Even though the gift card lost value instantly when people used it, people were still more likely to spend freely with it than they did with cash."

In an address at the University of Michigan on Friday, Michael Posner, co-director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, called for American colleges and universities to adopt uniform human rights standards relating to three aspects of their business operations – product licensing, procurement of goods and services and with respect to their investments.

On October 10, NYU Stern's Graduate Finance Association (GFA) will host its 19th annual conference.

Excerpt from Financial Times -- "It is also possible that productivity growth might be only temporarily low in rich countries, a view expressed by professor Paul Romer of the Stern School of Business at New York University. He said it was 'possible we’re really missing a huge opportunity by not being more aggressive on the demand side right now', and called for a more aggressive monetary stimulus."

Excerpt from Marketplace -- "[Icahn is] a 78-year-old man worth $23 billion, whose favorite sport seems to be arguing with CEOs. 'Activism in general draws a person who does not shy away from the limelight or shy away from a fight,' says Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU's Stern School of Business."  

Excerpt from Bloomberg -- "Fund managers need to take into account changes in the composition and behavior of fellow investors, said Aswath Damodaran, who focuses on equity valuation as a professor of finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business. 'These retirement funds have longer time horizons and preferences for larger dividend paying stocks than the rest of the market,' he said in an e-mailed response to questions. 'The old metrics, applied lazily and as rules of thumb, will yield the conclusion that these stocks are over-priced. If you believe that the fund flows have changed, you have to find a way to bring it into your analysis.'"

Excerpt from The Telegraph -- "In a separate IMF panel discussion on Wednesday with NYU professor Paul Romer and Ernesto Zedillo, the former president of Mexico, Mr Spence said it was imperative that governments overhauled labour laws to tip the balance back in favour of younger workers, who had paid a 'dreadful price' in the aftermath of the crisis."

Excerpt from Fast Co.Design -- "'If comprehending human communication consisted merely of translating sentences and syntax into thoughts and ideas, there would be no room for misunderstanding,' Kruger and company write. 'But it does not, and so there is... Email recipients only identified seriousness or sarcasm 56% of the time--not much better than chance.'"

As a part of the Conversations on Urbanization series held by NYU Stern’s Urbanization Project, Paul Romer, Professor of Economics and Director of the Urbanization Project at NYU Stern, University Professor and Director of NYU’s Marron Institute of Urban Management, spoke with Mark Kleiman, Professor of Public Policy in the UCLA School of Public Affairs, in a public presentation on October 9. 

Excerpt from Seeking Alpha -- "The market is protected from new entrants by heavy regulation, high fixed investment and economies of scale. Dish has an excellent relationship with EchoStar, its main supplier, which allows it to lower costs significantly. The company has excellent management with years of experience in the TV and wireless industries, and has demonstrated consistent improvement in average revenue per user of both wireless and broadband services. Dish is also utilizing market conditions to get cheap access to capital. The company currently has $8.9Bn of cash and cash equivalents on its balance sheet, which could be aimed at Spectrum purchases, international expansion and the entry into wireless."

Excerpt from Seeking Alpha -- "ULTA is the first mover in this business model and the company's rapid expansion helps ensure that customers are pulled into the ecosystem. The company also offers a points-based rewards program that keeps customers coming back. In fact, 80% of revenues come from rewards members. ULTA also has best-in-class E-Commerce (+50% Growth YOY), helping the company reach customers wherever they are."

Excerpt from Forbes -- "How much of a price premium will consumers be willing to pay for the benefits, or will the customization be viewed as a competitive tactic to increase new customer acquisitions and brand loyalty, without a price premium? In the latter case, there is a calculable marketing replacement value to customization."

Excerpt from Treasury & Risk -- "'The amount of data that’s being generated just doubles every year,' said Vasant Dhar, a professor and head of the information systems group at NYU’s Stern School and co-director of Stern’s Center for Business Analytics. 'In the old days, data was something that was collected painfully and there wasn’t too much of it. Now we’re in an age where everything is recorded almost as a by-product of how we function. The fact there’s so much that’s out there and available opens up a whole new world of possibilities and risks,' he added. 'This is the new math; it’s a new way of functioning and thinking about the world.'"

Excerpt from Fortune -- "Western companies benefit from a globalized marketplace backstopped by universal values that allows them to improve supply chains and reach new customers. They are engineered to compete with other corporations, not governments. Clashing states will force many companies to make painful choices about how they do business—and where."

Excerpt from Marketplace -- "When [Damodaran] looks at the biggest companies buying back the most stock—companies like Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, IBM—he sees a pattern. 'I mean you look at that list,' he says, 'and every single one of them, you look at the last decade, have a history of destroying value— of investing in things where they have nothing to show for it 5 years out, 10 years out.  I look at that list, and I say: Thank God for buybacks.'"

Excerpt from Seeking Alpha -- "My base case valuation based on comparable company multiples implies a price target range of $122.39 - $130.87 for Ashland compared to DCF intrinsic value of $125.55 — upside of 20.5% to 28.8% compared to current price of $101.57. Applying the worst case scenario discussed earlier, the stock has a valuation range of $109.0 to $112.07 (still an upside of ~8.8%). Running the model based on higher than estimated growth (higher than company estimate but in line with industry outlook) provides a best case SOTP price target of $134.68 (a 32.6% upside). As expected, the stock offers significant upside when valued as a separate businesses."

Excerpt from CNBC -- "'It's like water,' said Marti G. Subrahmanyam, professor at NYU's Stern School of Business, said. 'So long the floodgates have been kept closed and water could not flow from China to Hong Kong. They are slightly opening the floodgates.'"

Excerpt from The New York Times -- "'They are concentrated in the hardest part of the business,' said Roy C. Smith, a former partner at Goldman who is now a historian of the financial industry at New York University. 'In terms of the modern life of the place, this is the most difficult ordeal to manage its way through that the firm has ever faced.'"

Excerpt from Bloomberg -- "Critics such as Roy Smith, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, say prosecutors were driven by 'political fever' to extract massive penalties from Wall Street. 'They have to deliver something, so they come up with this,” said Smith, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) partner. 'The fact that it’s unfair never really gets considered. The banks have no choice but to hunker down and accept it.'"

Excerpt from Bloomberg -- "The best thing about the American economy is that it is structurally flexible, so the private sector is actually adjusting pretty fast. But we need very heavy investment infrastructure, education, skills, and other things to try to bring the lower half of distribution up."