Experience Stern | News & Events

Excerpt from BRW -- "Much of my investigation centered on flat-panel computer displays. I examined company and product data for 55 firms from the 1980s through the 2000s. Initially, companies pursued either plasma screens or liquid crystal displays. LCDs turned out to be the right call, but several firms with an early focus on plasma, including IBM, ended up as the top LCD performers. Why? I believe that switching to a new technology often forces companies to rapidly ascend a steep learning curve, and they can then use their knowledge to beat competitors whose learning proceeded more slowly."

Excerpt from Financial Times -- "The wider lesson, according to Michael Spence, a winner of the Nobel Prize for economics, is that the main current threats to prosperity – those that urgently need effective international co-operation – are the spillover effects of regional tensions, conflict and competing claims to spheres of influence. The most powerful impediment to growth, he adds, is a loss of confidence in the systems that made rising global interdependence possible."

Excerpt from Forbes -- "I’ve been amazed each time I discover a new, innovative Microsoft Kinect application for Windows gesture, voice and movement sensing technology. The areas are as diverse as healthcare, education, retail and business-to-business product demos. What Microsoft has done with Xbox Kinect beyond video games highlights two important aspects of new product innovation I think more firms should engage in..."

Excerpt from Bloomberg -- "I think the world will probably segment into apartment buildings that will advertise themselves as being Airbnb-free and there will be other apartment buildings where people will encourage Airbnb. So you will have an actual segmentation based on what kind of living experience you want and what kind of supplemental income generating potential you want your real estate to have."

Excerpt from The New York Times -- "Beautiful Asset did another review of the art market, using a different measure, and reached a similar conclusion: While, historically, the percentage of works resold within five years is higher now than it was, say, two decades ago, that percentage has been decreasing since 2008. 'It reached a high right before and after the financial crisis,' said Michael Moses, a founder of Beautiful Asset, 'and it has been declining since.'"

Excerpt from Reno Gazette Journal -- "Kruger and Dunning refer to their finding as the 'dual burden' of the unskilled: 'Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.'"

Excerpt from Bloomberg -- "'There’s often an issue that regulators don’t completely understand' the sharing-services industry, said Arun Sundararajan, a professor of information, operations and management sciences at New York University. 'It’s particularly interesting in the area of aviation regulation as it is by far the most regulated transport industry, so it’s going to be a tough transition.'"

Excerpt from The Washington Post -- "The study found that, overall, women are 13 percent more likely to meet their Kickstarter goals than men, and the effects are most evident in areas like technology. While less than 10 percent of the technology projects are accounted for by women-led teams on Kickstarter, 65 percent of the technology projects founded by women reached their fundraising goals, compared with just 30 percent of male-led ventures succeed."

Excerpt from The New York Times -- "Another study by Jason Greenberg at New York University’s Stern School of Business and Mr. Mollick also found higher proportions of female funders led to higher success rates in capital-raising for women."

Excerpt from Forbes -- "In his book The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt writes: 'The mind is divided in many ways, but the division that really matters is between conscious/reasoned processes and automatic/implicit processes. These two parts are like a rider on the back of an elephant. […] Learning how to train the elephant is the secret of self-improvement.'"

Excerpt from Fox Business -- "If you look at the opportunity [of Vurb], I think it's fantastic. They've innovated - it's a typical work-around because it's amazing that nobody else is looking at this situation. The reason for that, I think, is it wasn't a big enough problem to be really broken, it was just one of these...small frustrations that people got complacent about. The second thing was there's been a value shift in the markets so people are moving away from the web on to mobile so they're capitalizing on search for the mobile future. The third thing is they've really leveraged an ingrained behavior."

Excerpt from BBC News -- "Sam Craig, professor of marketing and international business at New York University's Stern School of Business, agrees with Brompton's patient, long-term approach to the US market, saying that such a policy is vital if a foreign firm wants to gain a foothold. 'There is a big difference between selling products in the US and establishing a strong presence,' he says. 'Your product or service has to stand out, be distinctive, and offer superior value.'"

Excerpt from CKGSB Knowledge -- "The rate of change in the world has been accelerating in terms of in developing economies, how easy it is to start a business, the rapidity with which commercial ventures are growing and changing, the recognition of really serious global problems that need more creative solutions to be solved, everything is moving more quickly and the standards are getting higher. So [there is a] much more competitive environment, much more rapidly moving environment, we need new ways to do things."

Excerpt from CCTV -- "'So some countries like France might be heavily indebted, but they have a long tradition of paying high tax rates, going along with whatever along is needed to pay their debts. Other countries like Argentina, I recall it defaulted when it only had 30% to 40% debt to GDP, they just did not have the political will to do so. Then there’s countries like Pakistan where there’s such unrest and so many economic challenges, that whatever the debt is, you just question the ability of the government to repay it,' Joseph Foudy said."

Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal -- "On Kickstarter, where backers make contributions in exchange for rewards, women-led companies account for less than 10% of technology projects. But roughly two-thirds of women-led technology ventures reached their fundraising goals versus just 30% of technology ventures with male founders, according to a new academic study. Overall, women are 13% more likely than men to meet their Kickstarter goals, even after controlling for project type, amount being raised and other factors, according to the analysis, which examined 1,250 projects in five categories that sought at least $5,000 between 2010 and 2012."

Excerpt from Financial News -- "What ethical and cultural workshops will accomplish is unclear. Such events have a history of being of little value but, with some effort by the Fed, the forthcoming ones could be quite significant. The Fed could begin by defining the standards it wants banks to meet. These should begin with the requirement that all banks strive to achieve a culture that values high ethical conduct and insists on treating customers fairly. The effort to do this is auditable to a reasonable degree. The Fed could say it will provide a “safe harbour” for banks – that is, will hold them blameless as institutions – if they can demonstrate they have adopted and are enforcing policies that make unit heads and mid-level management responsible for the integrity of products and marketing and sales procedures. Products or procedures that involve potentially injurious conflicts of interest, or rely on loopholes or technicalities, need to be nipped in the bud."

Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal -- "Companies that have affirmative action programs – some with a government contract are required to do so – risk subjecting minorities and women to increased scrutiny from their peers, Leslie’s research suggests. ... the policies are seen as making minorities and women more competitive, giving them a leg up in the race for resources and jobs. 'We tend to make negative attributions about people we compete with,' Leslie said, for example assuming they’re not nice. That can lead to less positive performance reviews from superiors. ... She recommends companies combat the perception that minorities and women aren’t qualified by stressing that hiring and promotions are based on merit. Organizations should also emphasize that diversity benefits everyone, Leslie said, pointing to findings that heterogeneous groups outperform homogenous ones and that a range of perspectives can lead to more creativity and innovation."

Excerpt from Business Insider -- "In a New York University study, researchers found that people with easier-to-pronounce names often have higher-status positions at work. One of the psychologists, Adam Alter, explains to Wired, 'When we can process a piece of information more easily, when it's easier to comprehend, we come to like it more.' In a further study, Alter also found that companies with simpler names and ticker symbols performed better in the stock market."

Excerpt from Today.com -- "'There’s a theory known as reciprocal disclosure, which suggests that friendships are built on a foundation of mutual disclosure. When you share a piece of personal information — a name, for example — you signal to other people that you’re willing to interact with them. In turn, they might open up to you, share a piece of personal information that further strengthens the relationship, and so on. So yes, wearing a nametag might encourage people to approach you — and, in time, it might become the first step in a budding relationship.'"

Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal -- "Alibaba's offer to crack down on gray-market goods for brands that open Tmall stores provides a powerful incentive for brands to join the site, said Scott Galloway, chief executive of L2 Inc., a New York-based research firm."

Excerpt from The New York Post -- "An experiment by psychologist Jonathan Haidt (sometimes called 'an ideological Turing test') asked liberals and conservatives to put themselves in the other guy’s socks for the duration of a test and ask them: How would your ideological opponent answer? Conservatives were far better at liberals at this game, though that should have been easy to guess."

Excerpt from Reuters -- "Make no mistake: Putin’s preparations are not just a bluff to deter and obfuscate—it’s also his backup plan. If Ukraine backs down on a siege of the rebel stronghold cities — or fails — we are still in the long game of intervention. That seems most likely, given the difficulties of the Ukrainian military engaging in street-to-street urban warfare. But if the Ukrainian military does rout the separatists, invasion may be the only card Putin has left."

Excerpt from CCTV -- "The antitrust law in China is similar to the antitrust law in Europe and the United States, but it also has a provision that allows the regulator to take into account industrial policy in China... such a provision doesn't exist in Europe and the United States. So, in many ways, it's similar, but it has some exceptions as well."

Excerpt from Bloomberg -- "'It’s definitely pay to play and they are definitely muscling brands and retailers around,' said Scott Galloway, a marketing professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business and co-founder of L2, a New York-based research firm that plans to publish its Amazon findings today with the title 'Great White Shark.'"

Excerpt from CFA Institute blog -- "In another volatility study by a trio of researchers from the New York University Stern School of Business and Morgan Stanley, which assessed distressed corporate bond portfolios, the authors concluded that investors are better off using a buy-and-hold strategy and investing in low-volatility distressed securities. When the portfolios are updated continuously as securities become distressed, the lowest-volatility portfolio outperforms because of lower default rates and higher terminal values. In theory, new data are absorbed by all markets simultaneously and incorporated into asset prices immediately."