Experience Faculty & Research

In my native Jamaica, hardscrabble industry manifests everywhere: Pushcarts in saturated colors are deployed across the island—bits of scrap lumber slapped together with cast-off wheels and a steering column, then piled high with coconuts and pineapples or weighed down with a hodgepodge of extension cords, toilet plungers, and belts for sale. On the outskirts of Kingston, a tire repair shop as unlikely as it is ingenious runs on machines made by hand from discarded car parts no longer useful for their original purposes. Read more

• Biography: Dean Peter Blair Henry
• Department: Economics

In the early 1970s, a team of researchers dropped hundreds of stamped, addressed letters near college dorms along the East Coast and recorded how many lost letters found their way to a mailbox. The researchers counted each posted letter as a small act of charity and discovered that students in some of the dorms were more generous than others. Read more

• Biography: Professor Adam Alter
• Department: Marketing

Dimon won handily, as he should have done. But the vote was a disappointment to some corporate governance wonks, who believe all large publicly traded companies should have the same leadership structure. Read more

• Biography: Professor Roy C. Smith
• Department: Finance

The run-up in gold prices in recent years – from $800 per ounce in early 2009 to above $1,900 in the fall of 2011 – had all the features of a bubble. And now, like all asset-price surges that are divorced from the fundamentals of supply and demand, the gold bubble is deflating. Read more

• Biography: Professor Nouriel Roubini
• Department: Economics

Do we really think of our older selves as strangers? And can digitally altered photos really improve our judgment? Professor Hershfield, defend your research. Read more

• Biography: Professor Hal Hershfield
• Department: Marketing

In an important policy statement, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently announced that it will issue `12,000-15,000 crore of 10-year maturity inflation-indexed bonds (IIBs) in 2013-14 in line with a budget announcement in February. Read more

• Biography: Professor Viral Acharya
• Department: Finance

The California summit between US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping on June 7-8 comes at a time of heightened tension between the world’s two preeminent powers. But divisive issues – from computer hacking to America’s “pivot to Asia” – must not claim all of the attention. If Obama and Xi lift their heads above the parapets and begin charting a jointly agreed course through the coming decade, they may find that they have much in common. Read more

• Biography: Professor A. Michael Spence
• Department: Economics

Barry Diller’s new Aereo venture may turn out to be the ultimate Catch-22. Aereo is possible only because of the existence of broadcast television, but broadcasters view it as a threat and have warned that they may stop broadcasting. If that happens, broadcast television and Aereo could both cease to exist. Read more

• Biography: Professor Lawrence White
• Department: Economics

Apple’s decision last week to issue $17bn in bonds has drawn attention to America’s abominable corporate tax system. The tech giant’s first debt issue comes at a time when it has more than $100bn in cash held outside the US. By borrowing from the capital markets, Apple can pay dividends to shareholders more cheaply than if it used the money stored outside the country, while getting a tax deduction for interest expenses. This decision has angered those who like to inveigh against “tax avoidance” and “corporate greed”. But the culprit is not Apple; it is the over-complex US tax system. Read more

• Biography: Professor Aswath Damodaran
• Department: Finance

Some have praised Disney’s decision to pull out of Bangladesh as a step forward for workers’ rights. It's not. Read more

• Biography: Professor Michael Posner
• Department: Business and Society Program Area

Whenever I give a lecture, I conduct a simple experiment. First I ask the members of the audience to raise a hand if they follow the actor Ashton Kutcher on Twitter. Usually most people’s hands go up—no big surprise. Read more

• Biography: Professor Sinan Aral
• Department: Information, Operations and Management Sciences

Is India different? Last month, India's finance minister confidently declared that nothing could stop his country from becoming the world's third-biggest economy. He may well be right, but size alone does not make India a special case. Its growth has been fast, but it is no trailblazer. Read more

• Biography: Professor Daniel Altman
• Department: Economics

Ingo Walter just wrote an intriguing piece on “Thoughts on Reputation and Governance in Banking,” (hyperlink to Ingo’s piece) inspiring me, as he often does, to put my own two sense into the conversation. Read more

• Biography: Professor Frederick C. Militello, Jr.
• Department: Finance

It is only a few days after the announcement that conglomerate PPR is changing its name to Kering and the snide remarks continue.There are mainly two groups of analysts who dismiss the change of name: news analysts who continue to view the conglomerate as a portfolio of disparate brands, the strategy of which they are unable to articulate; and financial analysts whose interest is focused on financial results exclusively. Read more

• Biography: Professor Thomaï Serdari
• Department: Marketing

The epic financial crisis of a few years ago inflicted immense damage on the process of financial intermediation, the fabric of the real economy, and the reputation of banks and bankers. Even today, some five years later, little has happened to restore financial firms to their former glory near the top of the reputational food-chain in most countries. For reasons of their own, many boards and managers in the banking industry have little good to say about the taxpayer bailouts and the inevitable regulatory tightening. In the words for former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond, "There was a period of remorse and apology for banks. I think that period is over. Frankly, the biggest issue is how do we put some of the blame game behind us? There's been apologies and remorse, now we need to build some confidence.” Read more

• Biography: Professor Ingo Walter
• Department: Finance

Facebook announced a series of incremental updates to Graph Search yesterday — as revealed by a peek under the hood — and I think it’s a good thing they’re doing the feature and user release so gradually. Read more

• Biography: Professor Arun Sundararajan
• Department: Information, Operations, and Management Sciences

The Justice Department’s suit against Standard & Poor’s is a fresh reminder of the large mistakes by the three major rating agencies – S.&P., Moody’s, and Fitch – in their evaluations of mortgage-based bonds during 2004-2007. There’s an understandable urge to further regulate bond raters to prevent such mistakes in the future. Read more

• Biography: Professor Larry White
• Department: Economics

The Apple saga is a reminder of how quickly momentum can shift in financial markets. Just six months ago, having released the iPhone 5 and with its stock price peaking at $705, the tech company that changed the way we live and created fabulous wealth for investors was on the top of the world. Read more

• Biography: Professor Aswath Damodaran
• Department: Finance

To make the U.S. financial system safe, we need to end the era of big bailouts. In December, the U.S. and the UK took a significant step in that direction, announcing a common strategy for resolving insolvent cross-border financial giants, known as global systemically important financial intermediaries (G-SIFIs). Read more

• Biography: Professor Thomas Cooley and Professor Kermit Schoenholtz
• Department: Economics

"Great corporations exist only because they are created and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and our duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions."

That quote is not from an Occupy Wall Street organizer or some modern-day corporate watchdog, but from President Theodore Roosevelt, as part of his First Annual Message to Congress in 1901. Indeed, questions about the actions and purposes of American corporations have been with us as long as corporations themselves. Read more

• Biography: Professor Ralph Gomory and Professor Richard Sylla
• Department: Economics

Tuition-based universities are doing something counterintuitive: competing with each other to deliver their content online and for free. Technology is disrupting the traditional lecture-based model and many believe this new paradigm of instruction is superior in important ways. Read more

• Biography: Professor Vasant Dhar
• Department: Information, Operations, and Management Sciences