Stanford GSB News

May 2009

Highlights

1. Reorganising the Banks: Focus on Liabilities, Not Assets
2. Derivatives: Are They Really That Scary?
3. Why Charlie Munger Isn't Happy With the Economy
4. Demystifying the Implications of U.S. Supreme Court Appointments
5. SEIU Head Urges Unions: Join Today’s Economic Revolution
6. People Who See Themselves as Multiracial Realize Real Benefits
7. Diagnostic Test Technology Will Change Medical Treatment
8. Banker David Morgan Takes a Positive Look at Failure
9. Former Foes Unite to Bridge the K-12 Achievement Gap
10. Offsetting Green Guilt
11. New Finding Could Be Key to Hydrogen-Powered Cars
12. Organizational Ambidexterity: IBM and Emerging Business
    
13. Readers' Favorites
    

The Economy

Reorganising The Banks: Focus on Liabilities, Not Assets
Fixing the banks is an absolute priority in G7 nations. Doing this by buying toxic assets is costly, inefficient, and risky. Governments should focus on which liabilities, rather than which assets, they need to support. Professors Stanford Jeremy Bulow and Paul Klemperer argue creating "bridge" banks is a way of re-establishing a healthy banking system.

Derivatives: Are They Really That Scary?
Three years ago most people didn't know what a derivative was. Now they're being blamed for the economic crisis. Stanford Business Professor Darrell Duffie offers a non-technical description and some views on the economic picture. [Video]

Why Charlie Munger Isn't Happy With the Economy
Charles T. Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway isn't shy about sharing his opinions. "I am a right-wing Republican, and I like the fact that Obama has put into the White House Larry Summers, who is a ferociously smart human being and will try to do the right thing even if it offends some people. I think that's a quality that we need right now." he told Stanford Law Professor Joseph A. Grundfest. From Stanford Lawyer magazine. [Includes Video]

Politics

Demystifying the Implications of U.S. Supreme Court Appointments
Appointing a new U.S. Supreme Court justice can have important long-term consequences, says Stanford Business School Professor Keith Krehbiel, but a new justice has only limited consequence for short-term policy outcomes.

Labor

SEIU Head Urges Unions: Join Today’s Economic Revolution
"No single generation has ever witnessed so much change," SEIU President Andy Stern told a Business School audience, and unions must be part of that change. [Includes Video]

Diversity

People Who See Themselves as Multiracial Realize Real Benefits
Individuals who identified with multiple ethnic or racial groups reported either equal or higher psychological well-being and social engagement than those who identified primarily with a single group, say researchers trying to understand multiracial psychology.

Health Care

Diagnostic Test Technology Will Change Medical Treatment
Of the $2.2 trillion spent on U.S. health care in 2008, diagnostic tests accounted for just 2 percent of total dollars spent. Yet the results of such tests drive 70 percent of treatment decisions, speakers told the Health Care Summit at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Education

Former Foes Unite to Bridge the K-12 Achievement Gap
Liberal and conservative groups are forming unprecedented alliances to improve K-12 education in the United States, sparked by a study from McKinsey & Co. that put a $700 billion price tag on the education achievement gap, Jonathan Schorr told the 2009 Stanford Business of Education Symposium.

Recent Speakers

Banker David Morgan Takes a Positive Look at Failure
Before he co-starred with Olivia Newton-John and long before he ran the biggest bank in Australia, David Morgan got a life lesson that was every bit as valuable as it was brutal. [Includes Video]

Environment

Offsetting Green Guilt
Do voluntary carbon offsets help slow global warming? Or are they simply a way for guilt-ridden consumers to buy their way out of bad feelings? Here’s what an economist has to say.[From Stanford Social Innovation Review]

New Finding Could Be Key to Hydrogen-Powered Cars
A hydrogen-rich compound discovered by Stanford researchers could help solve the problem of getting enough hydrogen to run an automobile into a small enough space to fit into the vehicle.

Research Papers

Organizational Ambidexterity: IBM and Emerging Business Opportunities
Graduate School of Business Research Paper 2025
by Charles A. O'Reilly III; Michael Tushman; J. Bruce Harreld
Evidence shows that only a tiny fraction of organizations live to age 40. Why this should be is a puzzle, since when firms are doing well they have all the resources (financial, physical, and intellectual) to continue to be successful. Drawing on recent advances in evolutionary theory, this paper illustrates how multi-level selection processes help organizations adapt in the face of technological and market changes.
[You may search the site for papers on other topics and by specific author.]

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