Olin Business School

In early spring, WashU’s China Alumni Network organized an appeal in an effort to give back to their alma mater, raising funds to purchase PPE for the Washington University Medical Campus.

The rate in which COVID-19 cases spread is not proportionate with the number of contagious individuals – as prior models assumed – but rather concave, meaning that the impact of one more infected person diminishes as more people are infected, according to Olin Business School researchers at Washington University in St. Louis.

The U.S. sports blackout because of the pandemic has left at least a $12 billion crater in the national economy. And even if stadiums and arenas light up anew soon, they won’t look the same. A sports business expert from the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis doesn’t expect the NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball to welcome fans if/when they return in 2020, for example.

During this critical transition as local economies are reopening, an organizational strategy expert at Washington University in St. Louis says businesses must be thinking about the appropriate mix of defense and offense if they are going to succeed in the long game.  

If the post-pandemic economic return includes minimum-wage increases across a few or many states, research led by Washington University in St. Louis scientists in the Olin Business School suggests that some positive and negative effects for U.S. workers follow in the two years after implementation.

The coronavirus pandemic has shattered and shuttered businesses. As businesses gradually continue to reopen across the United States, three Olin Business School experts at Washington University in St. Louis offer insights into potential opportunities that could help businesses to emerge from the economic storm.

As areas of the country begin to relax and do away with stay-at-home orders, things will not snap back to normal for all employees and organizations. This may seem obvious, but it has huge ramifications for what employers can and should expect from employees during this time, according to an expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

An interdisciplinary team at Washington University in St. Louis used computer modeling from different domains to look at how the United States might best lift quarantine — without a harsh blow to public health or the economy.

A new paper by an East Asia and international business expert in the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis finds that Hong Kong’s status as a leading global financial center is secure for multiple reasons, despite prolonged protesting. China’s government will continue to support it; Hong Kong’s financial networks possess extraordinary scale and sophistication; and no viable alternative center has emerged to challenge Hong Kong as the Asia-Pacific leader. Meyer, a senior lecturer in management, puts forth his arguments in “The Hong Kong protests will not undermine it as a leading global financial centre,” published online in April in Area Development and Policy.

Washington University in St. Louis has stepped up to help doctors and nurses who need somewhere to stay amid their intense work caring for the sick during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing rooms and meals at the Knight Center and the Lofts apartments.