Business & Entrepreneurship

Coco Chanel never took a marketing class, but she’s helping teach one this semester at Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis. Students in the new course, “Luxury Apparel-Marketing B53” are examining case studies of brands that make up the $237 billion industry that has its roots in Chanel’s famous perfume and little black dress.

Greece’s credit rating was reduced two levels to BB- by Standard & Poor’s this week, which said further reductions are possible as the risk of the country’s default increases. How can a nation facing its most severe economic crisis since the restoration of democracy in 1974 climb out of this deep recession? Reform may require a substantial weakening of labor unions in Greece, says an economist at Washington University in St. Louis who has studied the Greek economy.

Despite efforts to freeze non-security discretionary spending, the budgets of federal regulatory agencies are increasing in both 2011 and 2012. The estimated cost of running regulatory agencies in fiscal year 2011 is $54.9 billion, a 5.7 percent increase over 2010 spending, according to a new study from the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government and Public Policy at Washington University in St. Louis.

President Barack Obama released his birth certificate on April 27, but “birther” arguments continue. Election and constitutional law expert Gregory Magarian, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, says that Obama clearly meets the constitutional qualifications to hold his office. Magarian discusses various situations where “natural born citizen” (as required by Art. II, sec., 1 cl. 4 of the Constitution) may come into question during a presidential election.

Jeryl Hayes, Outstanding Graduate in the School of Law, learned at an early age to speak up for her gender, and now she intends to devote her legal career to women’s issues. “Jeryl is passionate, quick, kind, organized, diligent and wholly committed to engagement with issues of power and privilege,” says Laura Rosenbury, JD, professor of law and associate dean for research and faculty development.

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.