# Professor Richard Sylla reflects on the Dow Jones Industrial Average's 120th birthday

1 Faculty News May 26, 2016 ![The Atlantic logo](/sites/default/files/styles/246w/public/assets/images/con_031336.jpg?itok=T4ciY3Gl)>

Excerpt from [The Atlantic](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/05/dow-jones-120-years/484565/) -- "'The Dow is hardly a history of the U.S. economy. It is an index—unweighted—of the stock prices of a small number of America's largest corporations selected to represent the leading firms at particular times in our economic history,' explains [Richard Sylla](http://www.stern.nyu.edu/faculty/bio/richard-sylla), a professor of economics at NYU’s Stern School of Business who studies the history of financial institutions."

[Read more](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/05/dow-jones-120-years/484565/)