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On the Board, ‘Twokenism’ Is the New Tokenism - By Dolly Chugh
California recently passed historic legislation mandating that the boards of public companies based in the state include at least one woman. With just over 20 percent of S&P 500 company board seats occupied by women, it’s no surprise that progressive legislators are putting pressure on companies to diversify their boards. This pressure is part of a larger wave of growing public scrutiny over board composition. A reasonable question, however, is whether this kind of public scrutiny is likely to move the needle meaningfully on boardroom diversity. To what extent is board composition shaped by outside pressure and inspection?
—- Biography: Professor Dolly Chugh
- Department: Management and Organizations
— Opinion
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Why International Brands Want Cambodia to Meet EU Demands - By Michael Posner
Earlier this month, the European Union put Cambodia on notice that its preferred trade status is at risk.
—- Biography: Professor Michael Posner
- Department: Center for Business and Human Rights
— Opinion
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Stop Blaming Computer Programs for Steep Drops in the Stock Market - By Vasant Dhar
Since the crash of October 1987, sharp selloffs and volatility spikes in the stock market invariably raise the same question: are computer programs the culprit?
—- Biography: Professor Vasant Dhar
- Department: IOMS
— Opinion
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Why Anti-Semitic Attacks Are Human Rights Violations - And Should Be Treated That Way - By Michael Posner
The mass murder of 11 Jewish worshippers in a Pittsburgh synagogue has brought home to America the scourge of anti-Semitic violence. For decades, European countries from France to Denmark and from Hungary to Greece have experienced violent extremist attacks on Jews. But now Americans also must come to terms with a rising tide of anti-Semitic rhetoric and action here at home. As the Anti-Defamation League and others have carefully reported, anti-Semitic hate has surged in the United States in recent years, fueled by social media extremism. That hatred spilled over into Saturday’s carnage.
—- Biography: Professor Michael Posner
- Department: Center for Business and Human Rights
— Opinion
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Globalization in Year 2038: Change and Continuity - By Steven A. Altman and Phillip Bastian
Amid heightened volatility in international trade and capital flows since the 2008 global financial crisis and political backlashes against globalization in many countries, it would be folly to extrapolate recent trends to predict how globalized the world will be 20 years later. Instead, we focus this article on predictions about the nature of globalization that are likely to hold across a range of scenarios for the expansion or contraction of international flows. We begin with three predictions about what will change over the next 20 years, followed by three predictions about what will not change.
—— Opinion
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The Long Sino-American Trade War - By A. Michael Spence
Some observers interpret the trade war that US President Donald Trump has initiated with China as a tough negotiating tactic, aimed at forcing the Chinese to comply with World Trade Organization rules and Western norms of doing business. Once China meets at least some of Trump’s demands, this view holds, mutually beneficial economic engagement will be restored. But there are many reasons to doubt such a benign scenario. The long China-US trade war is really a manifestation of a fundamental clash of systems.
—- Biography: Professor A. Michael Spence
- Department: Economics
— Opinion
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Shareholders Are Stealing Our Jobs - By Andrea Armeni and Tensie Whelan
It’s not the robots that are coming for American jobs. It’s not the immigrants. It’s not evil offshoring CEOs either. It’s the shareholders.
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Under shareholder capitalism, the U.S. labor force has become a liability—a cost to be contained—rather than an asset, and the decrease in worker well-being is a simple externality to be placed off books and ignored.- Biography: Professor Tensie Whelan
- Department: Center for Sustainable Business
— Opinion
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A Primer on Concentration and Growth - By Thomas Philippon
In “A Primer on Concentration, Investment and Growth,” a study prepared for the 2018 Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium, Professor Philippon reviews the facts and controversies regarding the measurement and implications of rising concentration, including the importance of technological changes and foreign competition. He argues that weak investment cannot be explained by low expected productivity growth, low expected demand, higher costs of capital, or technological changes related to the rise of intangibles – but it is explained by declining competition.
—- Biography: Professor Thomas Philippon
- Department: Finance
— Research Highlights
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The Big Blockchain Lie - By Nouriel Roubini
With the value of Bitcoin having fallen by around 70% since its peak late last year, the mother of all bubbles has now gone bust. More generally, cryptocurrencies have entered a not-so-cryptic apocalypse. The value of leading coins such as Ether, EOS, Litecoin, and XRP have all fallen by over 80%, thousands of other digital currencies have plummeted by 90-99%, and the rest have been exposed as outright frauds. No one should be surprised by this: four out of five initial coin offerings (ICOs) were scams to begin with.
—- Biography: Professor Nouriel Roubini
- Department: Economics
— Opinion
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Wall Street CEOs Show True Leadership in the Khashoggi Case - By Michael Posner
The diplomatic fallout from the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi accelerated as three prominent U.S. business leaders withdrew from the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh, also known as Davos in the Desert. Laurence Fink, the CEO of Blackrock, Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, and Stephen Schwarzman, the founder and CEO of Blackstone, joined a growing list of heavyweights who are demonstrating corporate leadership by declining to attend this celebration of Saudi’s emerging economic power. Their withdrawal underscores that this should not be a “business as usual” moment with the Kingdom.
—- Biography: Professor Michael Posner
- Department: Center for Business and Human Rights
— Opinion
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What Jamal Khashoggi's Case Says about America's Values-Free Leadership - By Michael Posner
Great democracies advance their national interests by upholding their values. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt exemplified this approach earlier this week when he warned Saudi Arabian Foreign Minster Adel al-Jubeir that “friendships depend on shared values.” The impetus for his comment was the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was last seen entering the Saudi Embassy in Istanbul last week. After speaking with the Saudi Foreign Minister, Hunt tweeted that “violence against journalists worldwide is going up and is a grave threat to freedom of expression.”
—- Biography: Professor Michael Posner
- Department: Center for Business and Human Rights
— Opinion
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Why Algorithms Alone Can't Make the Internet Safe - By Michael Posner
Major Internet companies today find themselves in the cross-hairs of European regulators and facing increased public distrust in Europe and the U.S. One reason is that the full scope of harmful content online has become more evident. Until recently, Facebook, Google, and Twitter sought to downplay the magnitude of their problems in this regard, arguing that the amount of hate speech and political disinformation online was relatively tiny, a minor inconvenience when compared to the overall volume and value of Internet communications.
—- Biography: Professor Michael Posner
- Department: Center for Business and Human Rights
— Opinion
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What A Difference 20 Years Make: Now You Get To Be A Smart Investor - By Baruch Lev and Chenqi Zhu
On Sunday, May 3, 1998, a front-page article in The New York Times reported on a breakthrough in cancer research by EntreMed, a biotech company developing cancer drugs. Investors’ reaction was swift and decisive: On Monday, May 4, EntreMed’s share price surged from $12.1 close on Friday, to $85.0 on Monday’s opening, and closed near $52.0. The price hovered around $30.0 during the three following weeks. And not just EntreMed; the Nasdaq Biotechnology Combined Index also rose 7.5% on that Monday.
—- Biography: Professor Baruch Lev
- Department: Accounting
— Opinion
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The Restructuring of the World - By A. Michael Spence
The global economy is undergoing a far-reaching transformation. Change is being driven by shifts in countries’ populations, productivity, wealth, power, and ambitions, and accelerated by US President Donald Trump’s moves to reshape supply-chain structures, alter cross-border investment incentives, and limit the movement of people and technology across borders.
—- Biography: Professor A. Michael Spence
- Department: Economics
— Opinion
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Who Controls Your Data? India may Pass a Law Ensuring that You Do - By Vasant Dhar
On Aug. 24, 2017, India’s Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment declaring privacy to be a fundamental individual right. In response, a committee headed by a former Supreme Court justice drafted a data protection bill to be presented to parliament later this year. The measure introduces a new type of entity, a “data fiduciary,” which will ensure that data is used for designated purposes only.
—- Biography: Professor Vasant Dhar
- Department: IOMS
— Opinion