FEBRUARY 2007
Faculty News
Sharpe Writes Asset Modeling Book Coupled with Free Computer Program
In a new book, Nobel laureate financial economist William Sharpe shows that investment professionals cannot make good portfolio choices unless they understand the determinants of asset prices. Until now, asset-price analysis has been largely inaccessible to everyone except PhDs in financial economics. Based on a lecture he gave at Princeton, Sharpe’s book details his approach to asset pricing in a nonmathematical form that should be comprehensible to a broad range of investment professionals, according to the publisher, Princeton University Press.
Sharpe is the STANCO 25 Professor of Finance, Emeritus, at the Business School. He also makes this technique accessible through a free computer program available on his website. It enables users to set the starting conditions for virtual markets and then allow trading until equilibrium is reached and trading stops. Program users can then analyze the final portfolios and asset prices, see expected returns, and measure risk.
In his book, Sharpe, who shared the 1990 Nobel Prize in economics, reflects a lifetime of thinking about investing by one of the leading minds in financial economics. The book is Investors and Markets: Portfolio Choices, Asset Prices, and Investment Advice.
Research Center in India Named for Srinivasan
India’s Great Lakes Institute of Management has created the Kotler-Srinivasan Centre for Research in Marketing to develop knowledge in marketing, with a focus on research in India and its global role. The center was named in July for Professor Philip Kotler of Northwestern University and V. “Seenu” Srinivasan, the Business School’s Adams Distinguished Professor of Management.
Srinivasan will act as an advisor to the center, which is located in Chennai (formerly Madras) in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Srinivasan’s primary research is in the measurement of customer preferences and its role in product and service planning and pricing. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Marketing Research and Marketing Science and has been honored for his work, including the Parlin Award for outstanding contributions to marketing research.
Leadership Program Straddles the Pond
Professor George Foster, third from left, attended the launch of a new year-long program for 31 Irish software and technology CEOs. The kickoff took place last October at the Irish Management Institute in Sandyford, Ireland. Developed by Enterprise Ireland, the Irish Software Association, and the Business School, its goal is to enhance leadership and strategic planning at the CEO level. Modules of the program include two visits to the Stanford campus and a conclusion in Dublin. Here, Foster tests his skill at staying upright over a pool at the Irish Management Institute. With him, from left, are Steve Jacobs, a consultant with CLG; Bernie Cullinan, chairman of the Irish Software Association; and Frank Ryan, CEO Enterprise Ireland.
