Banks and borrowers went on a leveraged consumption binge that led to the financial crisis in 2008 according to Anjan Thakor. And the entire economy is still feeling the hangover pain from the credit-fueled party that caused bank failures and forced foreclosures across the country. Thakor’s new research examines the cycles of leveraged borrowing by banks and consumers as a possible cause of the crisis. His new theory of ‘infectious leverage’ could help prevent future financial meltdowns.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke coined the phrase “the Great Moderation” back in 2004 to refer to the relative stability of the U.S. economy over the previous two decades. Many believe “The Great Recession” of the past two years has jolted the economy out of its moderate mode and back into a state of high volatility. Washington University in St. Louis economist James Morley disagrees. He argues the Great Moderation is alive and well and will help the economy recovery from this latest financial shock.
Olin Business School is taking its executive education programs on the road and due west on I-70. Destination: Kansas City. Senior faculty will offer the same top-ranked seminars and the 20-month Executive MBA degree program to Kansas City-based professionals as those offered on the St. Louis campus. Olin’s executive MBA program was established in 1983 and has been offered in conjunction with Fudan University in Shanghai, China since 2002.
The School of Law’s 12th annual Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series continues Jan. 20 with the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture featuring John Payton, J.D., the director of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund.
WUSTL geoarcheologist Jennifer Smith, Ph.D., is featured a History channel documentary that solves a series of geological mysteries about the Sahara’s past. The show, part of the “How the Earth Was Made” series, explains why there are marine fossils embedded in the blocks of stone from which the pyramids are made and drawings of people swimming are scratched into the walls of desert caves.
The Record, the source of Washington University news and information since 1974, launches an entirely digital publication today, Jan. 19. It is part of Newsroom, the new comprehensive Web site of the University News Service and Medical News Service that debuts today as well. The digital format will allow more timely coverage of events, sharing to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and seamless integration of RSS and other Web 2.0 technologies.
Physics professor Stuart Solin, Ph.D., a “classic physics thinker” according to colleagues, lives by the scientific code of honesty and respect for evidence.
