economics
Business Schools and the Financial Crisis
By Dr. Hassan Shirvani—Business schools have been widely criticized for causing the recent financial crisis by teaching deeply flawed financial models and by failing to instill in their students an adequate appreciation of socially responsible behavior. As a result, many of their graduates, armed with their defective financial models and lacking in ethical standards, are accused…
Read MoreThe Knowledge Economy and the Globalization of Higher Education
By Dr. Beverly Barrett— Nearly two decades into the new millennium, the pace of technological change behind globalization continues to advance exponentially. This rapid technological progress has, in turn, necessitated the internationalization of higher education with emphasis on the development of high quality skills needed in the global knowledge economy. In my recent book Globalization…
Read MoreCognitive Biases and Rational Behavior
By Dr. Hassan Shirvani—As you might have heard, the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Richard Thaler for his pioneering work in the field of behavioral economics, a school of thought dedicated to the application of psychology to economics. The main point of this school is that humans are subject to too many…
Read MoreCanadian Crude Oil Blends
By Ali Oktay—Canadian crude oil blends are trading at steep discounts due to pipeline constraints. Let’s start with basics. In the chart below, you can see the different benchmark crudes lined up according to their API gravities. Canada is a major heavy oil producer, and WCS pricing has been recently hit by the pipeline constraints.…
Read MoreProfiting from Harvey
By: Gavin Brown & Sajjad Meghani–Houston recently suffered from the onslaught of Harvey, a once-in-a-thousand-years flood which devastated large parts of the city. Given the dire situation in Houston and seeing an opportunity for profiteering, some individuals were quick to make money by taking advantage of those who had been adversely affected by this horrific…
Read MoreData Analytics: Transforming Data into Insights, Decisions, and Actions
By Dr. Pooya Tabesh—Substantial changes are underway in the business data analytics’ landscape. Digital data in the universe doubles every two years and the size of business-related data continues to grow exponentially. In line with these trends, the adoption rate of popular big data analytics tools, such as data mining, machine learning, and other artificial…
Read MoreEconomics of Vanity Sizing
By Wan-Ju Iris Franz, PhD—“Size inflation,” also known as “vanity sizing,” is a phenomenon where the measurements of the same label size have been growing over time (The Economist)[1]. For instance, size 14 in Sear’s 1937 catalogue has similar measurements as a size 8 in 1967, which is a size 0 in 2011.[2] In my…
Read MoreAre U.S. Stocks Expensive?
By Dr. Hassan Shirvani—-As U.S. stock prices reach new historic highs, many investors are now wondering if another stock market cycle of boom and bust is at hand. Indeed, many financial advisors are already recommending a shifting away from stocks into safer investments such as cash and bonds. While predicting future stock price movements is…
Read MoreAn Economic Explanation for Why Donald Trump Won the 2016 Presidential Election
By Dr. Pierre Canac – With real GDP growing at 3.2% during the third quarter of 2016 while unemployment was running at 4.6% in November and 178,000 jobs were created during the month, we could have expected that the voters would have returned the incumbent party to the White House. However, it did not happen.…
Read MoreFriendship Ambassador Award Gala: US – China People’s Friendship Association
By Dayuan Peter Liu – On Friday October 28, 2016, at the Kim Son Downtown Ballroom, the US-China People’s Friendship Association (USCPFA) Houston Chapter hosted the 10th Annual Friendship Ambassador Award Gala. The University of St. Thomas is a Silver Sponsor of this event and has been in a good relationship with USCPFA for many…
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