Olin Business School

It’s not just social security and health-care that could be adversely affected when the baby boomers leave the workforce; the stock market could go into shock as well. According to research at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis, when people retire, they tend not invest as much they did in their younger years. With the boomer generation starting to pull out of the workforce, Wall Street is bound to feel the blow. More…

Temperature is rising as St. Louis tackles the ramifications of a flu epidemic.St. Louis is one of the few cities trying to stay ahead of the pandemic curve, thanks to workshops being conducted this spring and summer that bring together area institutions and businesses in round table formats. The Business Community and Pandemic Flu Roundtable is sponsored by the Washington University School of Engineering and Applied Science’s Center for the Application of Information Technology (CAIT) and the University’s School of Medicine. CAIT is St. Louis’ center for IT training, professional development, and executive interaction for more than 25 years. More than 100 business and institutional attendees are learning to address everything from potential vaccines and medications to sick leave policy and protective gear. More…

On May 10 at 5:30 p.m., at Washington University — Hilltop Campus, Simon Hall, May Auditorium, the winners of the first-ever Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition will be named. More than $100,000 is available to winners in different categories.

The winners of the inaugural Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition (SEIC) will be announced at a special awards ceremony held on Washington University’s campus. The competition is designed to foster growth for social entrepreneurs who craft innovative processes, approaches, and solutions to help resolve social issues. Over $100,000 is available to winners under a variety of categories.

“U.S.-China Business Relations” is the focus of a three-day academic symposium that kicks off with a public conference from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. May 11 in Room 311, Anheuser-Busch Hall. U.S.-China commercial relations and intellectual property rights are among topics to be covered.

Joe Angeles/WUSTL PhotoThere are companies that, like people, are smarter than others. Literally. A business professor at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a way to measure a company’s IQ based on how effective it is at innovating. Using data from SEC filings, a professor at the Olin School of Business, computed the IQs of all the publicly traded US firms that engaged in R&D. More…

Is it all about long-term growth or short-term gains? That’s the question some finance professors at Washington University in St. Louis set out to answer when they investigated why non-financial firms are timing the interest rate market. The answer: by swapping short term, flexible interest rates for long term, fixed contracts, or vice-versa, managers may be more likely to meet analysts’ forecasts. More…

Bob Boston/WUSTL PhotoTwo surgeons at the same hospital perform the same operations on patients with similar medical histories. Their costs to the hospital are similar, right? Not necessarily. There could be a difference as high as 45 percent. New research from Washington University in St. Louis finds that even when controlling for complexity of the operation and patient risk, surgeons incurred a wide range of hospital costs. More…

“When colleagues have professed great satisfaction about being a part of this community, it validates what we are doing,” Chancellor Wrighton said.

The Olin School of Business will honor the achievements of four alumni May 3 at the school’s annual dinner at the Ritz-Carlton St. Louis in Clayton. Business school Dean Mahendra Gupta also will present the Dean’s Medal to Stuart Greenbaum and his wife, Elaine, A.B. ’60. This year’s recipients of the Distinguished Alumni Awards are E. William Gillula, M.B.A. ’73, Lynn E. Gorguze, M.B.A. ’86, Lewis A. Levey, M.B.A. ’67 and Lin-Kuei Jackson Ling, M.B.A. ’04.