Business & Entrepreneurship

Steven Perlberg, a sophomore in Arts & Sciences, and other students from the “Just Do It! Turning Your Passion into Policy” class at Washington University answer questions from John Hancock, former head of the Missouri Republican Party in the St. Louis County Council Chambers in Clayton, Mo., May 2. The students offered mock testimony on a range of issues from puppy mills to local control of the city police force to a group of civic leaders posing as a committee of the Missouri Senate.

A trio of Olin Business School researchers — Radhakrishnan Gopalan, PhD, assistant professor of finance; Todd Milbourn, PhD, the Hubert C. and Dorothy R. Moog Professor of Finance; and Anjan Thakor, PhD, the John E. Simon Professor of Finance — says companies have not previously had the proper tools for determining how to pay executives and have developed a formula that businesses can use to align the duration, or payout, of an executive’s compensation with the strategic needs of the company.

Social Security’s yearly cost-of living adjustments (COLA) are targeted for reduction through a proposed “chained COLA” formula, and that could be a huge problem for those dependent on Social Security income. “COLA is an invaluable feature of Social Security,” says Merton C. Bernstein, LLB, a nationally recognized expert on Social Security. According to Bernstein, Republican “reformers” propose to reduce COLA claiming that the current method of calculating it overstates inflation. “This unrealistically assumes that people have the opportunity to buy lower priced substitutes when millions of people lack access to markets that offer such choices,” he says.

Tennis legend and women’s rights activist Billie Jean King (center) chats with WUSTL women’s tennis team members April 21 in the Knight Center. King was on campus, along with Ilana Kloss, former professional tennis player and CEO of World Team Tennis, to address students in the Olin Business School course on sports management.

Despite all the “irrational exuberance” April 26 surrounding the first-ever news conference conducted by a Federal Reserve bank chair, the issues that Chairman Ben Bernanke chose to dance around were equally unsurprising as those he managed to address, says Michele Boldrin, PhD, the chair of the Department of Economics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Pinelopi Goldberg, PhD, the William K. Lanman, Jr. Professor of Economics at Yale University, will address “Exchange Rates & Prices: A Micro Approach” for the Distinguished Women in Economics & Strategy lecture series at 4 p.m. Wednesday, May 4, in Simon Hall, Room 103. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by WUSTL’s Center for Research in Economics & Strategy.

Ken Harrington (second from right), managing director of the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, jokes with members of team Edele, which was awarded $10,000 from the center and the $5,000 student prize during the annual YouthBridge Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition April 14 in Simon Hall’s May Auditorium. Edele means “opportunity” in Amharic and is a social enterprise selling running apparel with the proceeds funding organizations addressing malnutrition in developing nations.

Washington University in St. Louis School of Law celebrated the outstanding achievements of six individuals at the annual Distinguished Alumni Awards Dinner April 15 in the Crowder Courtyard of Anheuser-Busch Hall. Kent Syverud, JD, dean and the Ethan A.H. Shepley University Professor, presented the awards. Four alumni received Distinguished Law Alumni Awards, and two received Distinguished Young Law Alumni Awards.

In the late 20th century, Chinese authorities enacted sweeping legal reforms, but in recent years, officials have stepped back from these reforms in the face of increasing citizen protests and concerns about social stability. “Horrified by the chaos of the Maoist era, Chinese authorities rebuilt their legal system in the 1980s and 1990s,” says Carl Minzner, JD, leading expert on Chinese law and politics and associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. Now Chinese Party and court authorities have begun to move away from the reform track of the last several decades, reasserting tighter control over the Chinese judiciary, restricting the activities of public interest lawyers, and resurrecting earlier mediation practices.

Robert R. Kuehn, JD, professor of law, has been named associate dean for clinical education at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, effective July 1, 2011.