Business & Entrepreneurship

President Barack Obama lately has been arguing for increased taxes on the rich through his proposed “Buffett Rule,” which would ensure that millionaires and billionaires pay a minimum effective tax rate of 30 percent on their income. Most Americans, including supporters of presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, support such a move, finds The American Panel Survey (TAPS), a new Washington University in St. Louis survey.

Winners of the seventh annual YouthBridge Social Enterprise and Innovation Competition were announced April 11. Winning teams represented community and WUSTL social entrepreneurs, including students, alumni and faculty. Their social venture ideas ranged from teaching teens about entrepreneurship through beekeeping to providing education to kidney transplant patients.

Olin Business School recognized the achievements of four alumni during the annual Distinguished Alumni Awards Ceremony April 5. They are: Scott B. Helm, Paul A. Koch, Roger L. Koch and Merry L. Mosbacher. Also presented was the Dean’s Medal to Joanne and Charles F. Knight and Carol and George Bauer.

Kurt Dirks, PhD, Bank of America Professor of Managerial Leadership at Olin Business School, discusses trust in the workplace. “It’s particularly timely,” he says, “given that trust in leaders of almost all sectors ranging from business to government to education are at record lows.”

The Jump Start our Business Start-ups (JOBS) Act, an entrepreneurship bill signed into law April 5 by President Barack Obama, could help open an entirely new class of investor to a process they largely have been held out of, says an expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

In a down economy where advertisers are concerned about every dollar spent, a team of researchers at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a new method of measuring the effectiveness of Google search advertising, taking into account not only online sales, but goods or services purchased off-line as well.

The Supreme Court’s upcoming decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care act has prompted some interesting and provocative issues about – and between – the president and the judicial branch, says Gregory P. Magarian, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis and former clerk for retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. “These alarmed reactions reflect historical ignorance,” he says.

Richard M. Frankel, PhD, was installed March 21 as the Beverly and James Hance Professor of Accounting at Washington University in St. Louis. Frankel joined Olin Business School in 2005 as associate professor of accounting and is an expert in financial accounting, which provides information to individuals outside a firm.

Whether surfing in his native Hawaii, promoting the rule of law in a newly independent country or navigating difficult issues in legal education and theory, Brian Z. Tamanaha, JD, JSD, the William Gardiner Hammond Professor of Law, approaches each adventure with thoughtful consideration.

After it rules on the highly contested health-care debate and makes other momentous decisions this term, will the U.S. Supreme have sufficient stores of legitimacy to weather the inevitable backlash? Yes, but barely, says a professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis.