Business & Entrepreneurship

What’s the best way to pay off debt? It’s simple. After making required payments to avoid penalties, pay down the loan with the highest interest rate. But consumers take a slightly different approach, according to a consumer behavior expert at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.

HBO’s Big Love and TLC’s reality-TV offering Sister Wives have thrust polygamy into popular culture in the United States. Estimates are that somewhere between 50,000-100,000 families in this country are currently risking criminal prosecution by practicing plural marriage. Proponents and detractors of polygamy use same-sex marriage to support their arguments, but that’s just a distraction, says Adrienne Davis, JD, an expert on gender relations and the William M. Van Cleve Professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “While the gay analogy may make for splashy punditry and good television, it distracts us from the main legal issue — polygamy challenges the regulations inherent in the conventional two-person marriage,” Davis says. “Putting aside whether you think polygamy is ‘right’ or ‘wrong,’ it is important to look at whether U.S. law is up to regulating marital multiplicity.” She proposes some default rules that might accommodate polygamy, while ensuring against some of its historic and ongoing abuses.

Discussion of the federal debt ceiling has dominated the front page recently. Several Washington University in St. Louis faculty experts, all members of the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy, have offered their opinions to the news media on the history of the debt ceiling and what may happen if a deal is not reached.

There’s a better way to help banking customers than the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that opened for business July 21, says a banking expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

Washington University in St. Louis School of Law is offering a Washington, D.C., area intellectual property field placement opportunity for students pursuing a career focused on the preparation, filing and prosecution of patent applications. Students in the externship will work at the law firm of Oliff & Berridge in Alexandria, Va., for one semester. “Our students will be expected to perform as a first-year associate,” says David Deal, JD, director of WULAW’s Intellectual Property & Technology Law Program and co-director of the Intellectual Property and Nonprofit Organizations Legal Clinic at WULAW. This program is designed to immerse WULAW students in a law firm environment and facilitate the transition from law students to competent and productive practitioners.

The Italian government on July 14 passed an austerity package designed to balance the budget by 2014 and protect Italy from a debt crisis. Will it work? Most likely not, says an economist at Washington University in St. Louis.

The WUSTL School of Law recently launched a formal alliance with the University of Queensland (UQ), one of Australia’s premier learning and research institutions. Beginning this fall, the law school and UQ’s TC Beirne School of Law will offer a four-year combined degree program. The program will allows U.S. students to study at both WUSTL School of Law and UQ’s law school.

Becoming a successful entrepreneur is a challenge for anyone — particularly for women and minorities. A workshop at Washington University in St. Louis July 25 aims to correct that by providing resources for women and underrepresented groups that can assist them in evaluating ideas and moving forward.

What can Waffle House teach about disaster preparedness and risk management, especially in the wake of this spring’s devastating tornados? Plenty, says a supply chain expert at Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis.

Washington University in St. Louis School of Law students Kailey Burger, Deona DeClue and Joseph Franklin are featured in TIME magazine’s online Fourth of July coverage focusing on the U.S. Constitution. Visit time.com. Reporters filmed people across the United States reading the Bill of Rights. Burger, DeClue and Franklin read the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Amendments, which focus on due process, speedy trials and civil trials by jury. The students were filmed in St. Louis’ historic Old Courthouse, site of the Dred Scott case.