School Notes: School of Management
May/June 2020

Yale Program on Financial Stability addresses COVID-19 challenges

As central banks, fiscal authorities, and international organizations take extraordinary steps to respond to the market distress caused by the COVID pandemic, the Yale Program on Financial Stability (YPFS) is offering support to decision policy makers. The YPFS is tracking what governments across the world are doing in response to the crisis, with regular updates and blog posts at som.yale.edu/ypfs. 

In addition, materials from YPFS studies of previous financial crises and interventions, as well as summaries of key design decisions and evaluations of outcomes, are available. YPFS has a rich online archive of implementing documents and public communications from interventions.

Iconic stock trading game goes public

The Stock Trading Game, a rite of passage for MBA students at the Yale School of Management for more than 30 years, is now available to organizations outside of Yale. The game, a live stock-market simulation, was rolled out to other universities, and in corporate settings, for the first time in its history. 

Yale SOM’s case research and development team worked with the university’s technology center to create a platform so that the game can be licensed outside of Yale. Yale SOM’s International Center for Finance and Citigroup also sponsored the project.

Roger Ibbotson, emeritus professor in the practice of management, created the game, first conducted with written buy and sell orders on a mock trading floor. The game moved online in 2011, and outside interest in the digital version began growing.