Eccles Newsroom

Corporate SEC filings key in predicting volatility

Katie Drake2020-01-24T18:33:34-07:00January 24th, 2020|

Investors and analysts trying to forecast the volatility of a company’s stock returns can find crucial insights in publicly available corporate disclosures, according to a new study. Under SEC disclosure requirements, corporate managers report their forecasts of a company’s stock-return volatility over the next few years, as Eccles School professors Atif Ellahie and Xiaoxia Peng note in their paper “Management Forecasts of Volatility.” While [...]

New study shedding light on the impact of paid family leave

Katie Drake2019-11-01T09:40:03-07:00October 28th, 2019|

What impact does California's 2004 Paid Family Leave Act have on the gender pay gap? New research from the Eccles School's Elena Patel and her coauthors shows that parents spend more quality time with kids and tend to have fewer children overall, but may miss out on earnings over their child's lifetime. Read more about the study in The Washington Post, The Federalist, Market [...]

Eccles School faculty have novel way for testing false positives

Katie Drake2019-09-30T11:32:18-07:00September 25th, 2019|

Have Eccles School researchers Davidson Heath, Daniele Macciocchi and Matthew Ringgenberg and their colleagues solved the so-called "green jelly bean problem" when it comes to the popular natural experiment Regulation SHO? One columnist at Marginal Revolution thinks so. The research also received write ups in The Financial Times and Harvard Law.

Is knowing yourself actually good for you? New research shows the question is a bit unclear

Katie Drake2019-09-17T19:18:52-07:00September 17th, 2019|

We've all heard the old adage to "first, know thyself." But is it really that helpful when it comes to psychological adjustment? It may not be, according to new evidence, but the Eccles School's Elizabeth Tenney argues that self insight can still be important to job performance and other areas of life. Read the research and see where Tenney stands in Scientific American.

Resist the lure of overconfidence, Eccles School professor warns

Katie Drake2019-08-08T11:55:28-07:00August 8th, 2019|

Is the person leading your meeting actually an expert, or have they just mastered posture, eye contact, and speaking style? It can be easy to confuse the two, Bryan Bonner, Eccles School professor of management, tells Scientific American. He calls confidence a "messy proxy" for expertise. Read the full article and learn how to resist the lure of overconfidence in Scientific American.

Reshaping capitalism at the Edinburgh home of its founder

Katie Drake2019-07-16T14:41:11-07:00July 16th, 2019|

Emerging consensus among academics holds that "maximizing shareholder value is a thoroughly bad idea," according to attendees at a recent conference in Edinburgh at the home of Adam Smith, the famed father of capitalism. The issue, says Jay Barney, presidential professor and Pierre Lassonde chair of social entrepreneurship at the David Eccles School of Business, is that while we know how to fix this [...]

IPO market seeing more women CEOs, despite disadvantages

Katie Drake2019-07-08T14:12:21-07:00July 8th, 2019|

This year has been a fantastic one for women CEOs taking companies through an IPO, despite the disadvantages they often experience from professional investors, who are overwhelmingly men. Read more about the IPO journey for female CEOs — including research from associate professor Lyda Bigelow — at Yahoo! Finance.

Management professor’s research shows honesty is the best policy worldwide

Sheena McFarland2019-06-21T09:48:55-07:00June 21st, 2019|

Honesty apparently is the best, or at least most common, policy. That's according to new research conducted by David Tannenbaum, assistant professor of management at the David Eccles School of Business, which was published in the journal Science. He and his three co-authors dropped more than 17,000 wallets filled with cash in 40 countries. "We went in thinking that people were going to be [...]

Tips on unpaid caregiving for family without losing yourself

Katie Drake2019-03-04T14:04:44-07:00March 4th, 2019|

There are more than 330,000 family caregivers providing about 300 million hours of unpaid work — in Utah alone, according to data from the AARP. With numbers like that, it's increasingly likely that each of us will end up as an unpaid caregiver at some point. With that in mind Debra Scammon, of the Master of Healthcare Administration program, provided some tips on how [...]

Criticizing public companies for “short-termism” is nonsense, according to Barron’s

Katie Drake2018-10-08T22:28:28-07:00October 8th, 2018|

"Companies with publicly traded shares invest proportionately far more than privately held businesses. The difference is particularly stark when comparing spending on research and development," according to an article in Barron's, which cites research by Elena Patel, an assistant professor of Finance at the David Eccles School of Business.

Female founders more likely to struggle when it comes to securing venture funding

Katie Drake2018-09-26T09:51:13-07:00September 26th, 2018|

Is there a gender bias when it comes to securing venture capital for your startup? The data points to a resounding "yes." "There appears to be a deep-seated ... unconcscious bias against seeing women as effective entrepreneurs or risk-takers," Lyda Bigelow, associate professor of Entrepreneurship and Strategy tells the Deseret News.

The way you phrase questions may determine the honesty of answers

Katie Drake2018-08-31T11:11:33-07:00August 30th, 2018|

If a prospective employer asked "Do you ever use work time for personal email or social media?" it would be easy to answer no. But what if they instead said "You use work time for personal email, right?" The different phrasing makes it much easier to admit that you've checked Instagram while on the clock. Eccles School Assistant Professor of Marketing Eric Van Epps [...]

Does pay transparency make for happier employees? It’s unclear

Katie Drake2018-08-16T16:20:46-07:00August 16th, 2018|

Pay transparency may make for happier employees, but there is also the chance it could spark jealousy among colleagues and make it harder for companies to hire and retain workers. As it stands there is not comprehensive research on how pay transparency impacts employees, according to Todd Zenger, presidential professor of strategy and strategic leadership at the David Eccles School of Business. Zenger weighed [...]

There may be such a thing as a stupid question, according to science

Katie Drake2018-07-30T14:06:37-07:00July 11th, 2018|

If you ask a question, you expect a truthful response. But it turns out that how you ask and phrase the question can have a huge effect on how much truth the respondent is willing to reveal, according to new research by Eric VanEpps, an assistant professor of Marketing at the David Eccles School of Business. VanEpps explains the phenomenon in an op-ed in [...]

Voluntary financial disclosures can prove powerful for activist investors

Katie Drake2018-04-13T08:25:29-07:00April 13th, 2018|

Activist investors always face the challenge of convincing other shareholders that their agenda will actually increase the value of the targeted firm. To combat the issue, they often release public disclosures in hopes of persuading others. Eccles School Assistant Professor of Accounting Jordan Schoenfeld recently analyzed these disclosures — and their consequences. Check out his findings in The CLS Blue Sky Blog, the Columbia [...]

Irrational humans cause issues for Rational Markets Theory

Katie Drake2018-04-04T21:13:24-07:00April 4th, 2018|

Human behavior can be an odd thing, and it's something that can drastically affect important parts of our lives, including our economy. "Even markets with some rational participants can behave irrationally. Speculation can move prices around for irrational reasons, and rational traders often either can’t or won’t bother to correct them," according to a Bloomberg article that cites the research of Matthew Ringgenberg, associate [...]

Eccles School professor on how to stop falling for fake expertise

Katie Drake2018-03-07T13:45:49-07:00March 7th, 2018|

We've all been in a meeting with that loud person who somehow manages to overshadow everyone else — even if they don't really know what they are talking about. These "proxies of expertise" often end up taking the lion's share of attention in a given meeting, and can lead to poor decision making and negative side effects, says Bryan Bonner, Management professor at the [...]

Why well-reasoned theories are more important than crunched numbers

Katie Drake2018-02-07T13:03:29-07:00January 22nd, 2018|

Creating a new and viable business strategy requires seeing the world in new ways, and asking novel questions that lead to fresh insights, according to Todd Zenger, chair and presidential professor of strategy and strategic leadership here at the David Eccles School of Business. Zenger contends that even the most sophisticated algorithms or data sets cannot generate this type of outlook. Zenger makes the [...]

Uber selling its leasing business to get an advantage over Lyft

Katie Drake2018-02-27T16:53:56-07:00January 2nd, 2018|

Uber's leasing business never really took off, and now the ride-sharing company has sold off that piece of the business in an attempt to become more competitive with rival Lyft. “The large losses they incurred were not unexpected because they don’t have the data to put together a leasing business," Mark Jansen, assistant professor of Finance at the David Eccles School of Business told [...]

What’s in a name? A lot of money, Eccles School research shows

Sheena McFarland2018-02-27T16:50:16-07:00December 22nd, 2017|

A rose called any other name may smell as sweet, but it's stock might not be worth as much if it's a company. Professor Mike Cooper, the A. Blaine Huntsman Presidential Chair in Finance at the Eccles School, co-wrote a paper that looks at stock-price increases after a name change to reflect a current trend. Cooper's paper looked at adding .com during the tech [...]

How to recognize and eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace

Katie Drake2018-02-27T16:56:46-07:00December 19th, 2017|

Everyone can agree on egregious sexual harassment, but what about its more subtle forms? Increasing recognition and eliminating uncertainty are key to ending sexual harassment in the workplace, according to Kristina Diekmann, David Eccles Professor of Business Ethics here at the Eccles School. Diekmann and others shared tips on ending workplace harassment in this month's Utah Business.

New tax plan could create winners and losers among middle class

Katie Drake2018-02-27T16:58:05-07:00December 18th, 2017|

What does the new tax plan mean for Utah families? Thus far the outcome is uncertain. The plan could be creating "winners and losers" according to Nathan Seegert, assistant professor of Finance at the David Eccles School of Business. Read the full story in The Washington Post.

KSL: Eccles School finance professor warns of Bitcoin bubble

Sheena McFarland2018-02-27T16:59:01-07:00December 16th, 2017|

Bitcoin has shot up in value, making many people wonder if they should invest in the cryptocurrency. But Utah analysts, including Mark Jansen, associate professor of finance at the Eccles School, warn about a looming bubble. Read the full article on KSL here.

It might be time to change the conversation surrounding vaccination

Katie Drake2017-12-20T11:38:04-07:00December 7th, 2017|

Focusing on individual liberty and purity may be the way to change the minds of those who choose not to vaccinate their children, new research shows. A paper by Jesse Graham — George S. Eccles Professor of Business Ethics here at the David Eccles School of Business — and co-authors suggests that reframing the conversation around the anti-vaxxer movement might change more minds than [...]

Eccles School faculty weighs in on Trump’s visit to Asia

Katie Drake2018-02-27T17:00:18-07:00November 29th, 2017|

Lee Boam spent years as a diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service before becoming an assistant professor at the David Eccles School of Business. That expertise has led Chinese news outlet the Epoch Times to turn to Boam for analysis of President Donald Trump's recent visit to Asia. Read the interview by visiting the Epoch Times. The article is in Chinese, but you can [...]