Posts Tagged ‘Hassan Shirvani’
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 MoreAre Student Teaching Evaluations Reliable?
By Dr. Hassan Shirvani–Opinions vary widely on the worth of student evaluations of their teachers. To some, they are useful tools for providing faculties with timely student feedbacks, for assisting students with their course selections, and for helping administrators with their personnel decisions. To others, they are unreliable and biased instruments for eliciting teaching evaluations from the students that are too immature, inexperienced,…
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 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 MoreMaking Management Research More Relevant
By Dr. Hassan Shirvani—Much of the recent management research deals with the presumed growing business competition, the increasing roles of entrepreneurship and technological progress in economic growth, the deepening appreciation of corporate social responsibility, and the rising importance of globalization. As a matter of fact, however, there is considerable evidence that (1) businesses are becoming more concentrated and less competitive, (2) most recent tech startups seemingly contribute more to leisure than to productivity…
Read MoreAdvertising and Economics
By Dr. Hassan Shirvani–Advertising is an important feature of our daily economic life. As we watch TV, listen to radio, read newspapers and magazines, and use social media, we are constantly bombarded with advertisements. For this “privilege,” we are asked to pay some $325 billion per year, roughly 2 percent of our annual national income. Given this heavy demand of advertising on our…
Read MoreInsight from Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers: Global Perspectives Speaker
By Jeffrey Coburn—On September 27, 2016, the Federal Reserve of Dallas, Texas, held its Global Perspectives Speaker Series, featuring Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers. I was interested in going to the event because I want to learn more about financial economics and international economics, and two of the CSB professors, Dr. Hassan Shirvani and…
Read MorePsychology and Economics
By Dr. Hassan Shirvani—Among the collateral damages of the recent global economic crisis has been the reputation of the economics profession whose members famously failed to anticipate the financial tsunami that rocked the world. Enmeshed in their complex mathematical models with their highly unrealistic assumptions, most economists were seemingly as stunned by the suddenness and the severity of the economic downturn as the average person on the street. Even Queen Elizabeth of England, on…
Read MoreSchumpeter on Entrepreneurship
By Dr. Hassan Shirvani –Since the great Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950) introduced the concept of entrepreneurship into economics almost a century ago, economists have struggled to systematically incorporate this concept into their models of economic development, with only limited success. As a result, the initial enthusiasm over the unique role of entrepreneurs as heroic…
Read MoreA Mathematical Gem from Euler
By Dr. Hassan Shirvani–The Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler (1707–1783) is widely considered as one of the greatest mathematicians who ever lived. He made fundamental and path-breaking contributions to many areas of mathematics and physics. In the following example, Euler displays the inspired ease with which he managed to crack some of the most difficult mathematical…
Read More