Knowledge at Wharton

As baby boomers retire and start spending their nest eggs they will need new financial products to make their money last according to speakers at a recent Wharton Impact Conference titled ”Managing Retirement Payouts: Positioning Investing and Spending Assets.” The conference explored emerging patterns in spending during retirement and debated new ideas to help retirees manage their finances after...

Last week the United States’ first major immigration reform bill in two decades collapsed in the Senate. Buried in the ongoing debate was the potential economic impact of a measure that could change the composition of America’s workforce in significant ways: By cracking down on illegal immigration the legislation could constrict the future supply of low-skilled workers while a move to skill-based...

Lucrative deals are hard to come by these days for investors looking to extract value from distressed companies around the world. As global markets become increasingly sophisticated success will be determined by those who know how to navigate local corporate legal and cultural terrains. At the 2007 Wharton Restructuring Conference turnaround consultants and distressed asset investing experts noted...

When it comes to rolling out new goods and services companies tend to choose one of two strategies as a way of generating interest in their products whether it’s Apple’s iPhone or Microsoft’s Surface Computing effort. One is pre-announcing the product to give customers partners and even competitors advance notice of what’s to come. The second approach is the surprise unveiling where a company hope...

Earlier this month Cerberus Capital Management bought 80.1% of Chrysler Group from German auto maker Daimler-Chrysler effectively ending a nine-year marriage between the two that never quite worked out. The expectations created by this acquisition are huge and revolve in part around Cerberus’s ability to make a deal with the United Auto Workers union that would include restructuring billions of do...

Some shoppers just can’t help themselves and buy mostly on impulse without regard to price. Others are die-hard bargain hunters who only open their wallets for a discount. Then there are the strategic consumers who are willing to buy full-price sometimes but at other times they will wait for a bargain. According to new research by Gérard P. Cachon professor of operations and information management...

With an estimated $1.2 trillion under management it’s clear that hedge funds must have an effect on the financial markets. The question is: How? In one of the first studies to shed light on that subject researchers at Wharton and three other business schools find that hedge funds’ efforts to improve companies they hold big stakes in have spillover benefits for all shareholders: a quick 5% to 7% ju...

We’re all familiar with titles like chief executive officer chief financial officer and chief operating officer. We have even grown used to chief technology officer chief marketing officer and chief diversity officer. But what about chief talent officer chief cultural officer chief innovation officer chief privacy officer chief apology officer and chief geek to name just some of the more contempor...

According to estimates micro and small businesses contribute almost 50% of South Africa’s total employment and 30% of its gross domestic product. Until recently however the impact of poor health and in particular HIV/AIDS on these enterprises -- ranging in size from single owner-workers to companies with 100 employees -- has been largely overlooked by researchers. A new study by Li-Wei Chao from t...

”The U.S. pursues securities law violations with a regulatory intensity unmatched elsewhere in the world ” according to John C. Coffee Jr. director of the Center on Corporate Governance at Columbia University Law School. At a recent Wharton Impact Conference on international corporate governance Coffee said that although securities law enforcement can lower the cost of capital it may deter some fo...

Dana Gioia (pronounced Joy-a) claims to be the only person in history who went to business school to be a poet. Having earned a degree from Stanford’s graduate school of business he worked 15 years in corporate life eventually becoming vice president of General Foods. In 1991 Gioia wrote an influential collection of essays titled ”Can Poetry Matter?” in which he explored among other themes the nex...

Microsoft buys aQuantive; Google acquires DoubleClick for $3.1 billion; Yahoo purchases the 80% of Right Media it doesn’t already own and ad firm WPP gets 24/7 Real Media for $649 million. And that’s just in the last six weeks. The common thread: All the takeover targets are online advertising companies. The race to consolidate the online advertising industry is heating up at the same time that ad...

During the recent 2007 Wharton Economic Summit Knowledge at Wharton recorded nine podcasts with speakers and panelists at the event whose theme was ”Next Moves in a Global Economy.” The interviews are with Jeffrey R. Lurie owner of the Philadelphia Eagles Football Club; Shellye L. Archambeau CEO of MetricStream; Ramkrishan (Remi) Hinduja chairman of HTMT Global Solutions together with Sashi P. Red...

On May 6 conservative Nicolas Sarkozy won the French presidential election defeating socialist Segolene Royal and taking over from Jacques Chirac who had held the positon for 12 years. The election drew a very high 85% turnout which many saw as a sign that French voters recognize the need to get out from under their economic stagnation and social unrest. Sarkozy is depicted as a friend but also a...

The wireless broadband pieces appear to be falling in place: Sprint Nextel says its next-generation high-speed network will be launched in a few markets by the end of 2007. Intel plans to embed so-called ”WiMAX” enabled semiconductors in laptops by the end of 2008 and startups like Craig McCaw’s Clearwire hope to blanket much of the nation with WiMAX service. Other companies are supporting hybrid...

A key element of what has been called ”web 2.0” -- along with ideas such as user-generated content and social networks -- is the concept of ”rich Internet applications ” which use the web as a platform for innovative types of online experiences. A new generation of Internet-connected applications is beginning to emerge led by such companies as Adobe Systems. Knowledge at Wharton recently interview...

This spring Wharton and the Penn law school hosted 37 professional women from the Middle East for a four-week legal and business fellowship program funded by the U.S. Department of State Middle East Partnership Initiative and supported by America-Mideast Educational and Training Services (AMIDEAST). The women studied management and business skills at Wharton executive education and legal skills at...

In a perfect world there would be faster computers less lower back pain more accurate ways to detect the warning signs of a heart attack and even better-fitting business attire for female executives. And that would mean more comfort and time to enjoy the sweet things in life like a gourmet chocolate bar. If the ”Eight Great” finalists in the 2006-2007 Wharton Business Plan Competition -- who recen...

The average person according to the experts makes 200 food-related choices a day. Actually make that 201 choices. Courtesy of a new campaign by a leading restaurant chain diners who are used to choices that make their meals bigger can now actually choose to order portions that are significantly smaller. This spring T.G.I. Friday’s announced what it called an ”unprecedented move in the casual dinin...

In Homer’s poem ”The Odyssey ” Odysseus had a tough time finding his way home after the Trojan War what with all those monsters threatening to derail his journey. But Odysseus at least had left a wise and trusted fellow named Mentor to be the guardian and teacher of his son Telemachus. Modern employees need mentors as much as Telemachus especially in these times of upheaval. In fact mentoring is j...

The sales associate noticing the approach of a customer is suddenly intent on restocking merchandise or discussing when she will take her next break -- anything to avoid actual contact with the shopper. It’s the type of behavior that dominates the list of complaints cited in the second annual Retail Customer Dissatisfaction Study. The study conducted by Wharton’s Jay H. Baker Retail Initiative and...

The U.S. population is getting older as the ”age wave” of baby boomers nears retirement. Will their 60s 70s and 80s be happy years marked by prosperity good health and fulfilling activities? There’s every chance of that according to two keynote speakers at Wharton’s 2007 Economic Summit: Wharton finance professor Jeremy Siegel and Michael Milken head of The Milken Institute a non-partisan think ta...

Blockbuster deals -- like YouTube’s recent sale to Google for $1.65 billion and Skype’s sale last year to eBay for $2.6 billion -- are giving venture investors new confidence in their ability to cash out said a group of venture capitalists who spoke on a panel at the 2007 Wharton Economic Summit. In addition new sectors like ”clean tech ” an umbrella term for environmentally friendly technologies...

In Venezuela President Hugo Chavez is threatening to take control of several major projects from American and European firms. In Russia the government recently strong-armed Royal Dutch Shell into relinquishing control of a large oil field. Across the oil-producing world governments are responding to higher petroleum prices by imposing new taxes on oil companies and forcing the renegotiation of con...

Globalization is pulling tens of millions of people out of poverty annually and creating worldwide wealth unimaginable a generation ago. But its benefits are being shared unequally resulting in widespread public dissatisfaction that business leaders ignore at their peril two top executives told participants at the 2007 Wharton Economic Summit. Stan O’Neal chairman and chief executive of Merrill Ly...