10.21
Education, Business, & Law
Wharton receives $50 million gift from Marc J. Rowan and Carolyn Rowan
The largest single gift the school has ever received, it will support the Penn Wharton Budget Model, and help recruit distinguished professors and appoint Rowan Fellows for five-year terms.
Dorothy Roberts on how prison and foster care systems harm black mothers
The Law School professor contributed to a new book that argues the prison and foster care systems work in concert against black women.
The Rt. Hon. Sir Nick Clegg meets with students from across the U.K.
During a visit to campus for the Penn Biden Leaders Dialogue, the former deputy prime minister met privately with graduate and undergraduate students to discuss global politics and the United Kingdom’s rapidly changing role.
Is ‘Democracy in Trouble?’
“Democracy in Trouble?” is the focus of a year’s worth of programming at the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy. Its 2018-19 Speaker Series examines and counters trends regarding the ongoing threats to democracy in the United States and around the world.
Field Center announces first statewide ‘Foster Care to College’ cohort
The Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice & Research at the University of Pennsylvania has announced its first statewide cohort of colleges selected to establish campus-based support programs for former foster youth.
The auto bailout 10 years later: Was it the right call?
Wharton's John Paul MacDuffie discusses the GM and Chrysler $80 billion bailouts in 2009, and whether the consequences of the free market or the government should have determined the future of a failing company with 3 million of jobs at risk.
Returning to Vietnam
A child of Vietnamese refugees, David Thai has returned to his family’s homeland as a Fulbright Scholar, where he will teach English at the Hoang Le Kha High School for Gifted Students, in the southwestern region of Vietnam, a few hours from where his mother grew up.
How the Great Recession changed American workers
Wharton experts argue that the fallout from the Great Recession of 2008 persists today. Fewer home owners, increasing retirement age, and lingering debt, plus a debate about the true cause of the financial meltdown continues one decade later.
Even if Roe isn’t overturned, abortion access could fall, say Penn legal scholars
Penn Law’s Allison Hoffman and Serena Mayeri explain that the real threat to abortion access is a state-by-state application of restrictions on clinics and practitioners, without interfering with Roe v. Wade as settled law.
Q&A with Marci Hamilton
A national expert on child sex abuse, Hamilton comments on the vast Roman Catholic clergy sex abuse crisis.
In the News
Philadelphia Inquirer
Trump-friendly Newsmax bundled into Comcast’s Xfinity service
The Annenberg School for Communication’s Victor Pickard discussed conservative news channel Newsmax and its recent deal with Comcast. If Comcast is “feeling the heat from the right, it will make sense to appease some of those critics,” said Pickard.
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CNBC
Dieting is out. That poses a problem for a company named Weight Watchers as it rebrands itself WW
Kevin Volpp of the Wharton School and Perelman School of Medicine offered commentary on the “universal challenge” of dieting. “People generally speaking are much more successful in achieving initial weight loss than maintaining weight loss,” he said.
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Bloomberg
Barbara Kahn discusses the retail revolution (podcast)
Barbara Kahn of the Wharton School was interviewed about changes in the world of retail and marketing. “People talk about [contemporary online shopping] as ‘omnichannel’ but right now it’s just retail. Retail has now become a seamless integration between online and offline,” said Kahn.
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Bloomberg
Sears bankruptcy hits close to home for Trump
Speaking about Sears’ decline, the Wharton School’s Daniel Raff said that expressions of nostalgia for the store, which has long catered to blue-collar Americans, “may well resonate with [Trump’s] core voters.”
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Economic Times
Bigger Billion Days: How this year’s festive season could prove transformative for Flipkart
Discussing Indian e-commerce, the Wharton School’s Kartik Hosanagar said that the ratio of customer acquisition costs to customer lifetime value is “even more lopsided than in the U.S., Europe, and China.” The key to profitability, he said, is reducing those acquisition costs and improving customer retention.
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