School Notes: School of Management
November/December 2021

Program in asset management draws inaugural class

Yale SOM welcomed the inaugural class in the school’s new master’s degree in asset management program this fall. The cohort of 56 students began the full-time, nine-month course of study—which leads to a master of management studies degree—on September 1.

The class is 45 percent female, and 43 of the 56 students are international passport holders, with citizenship in 13 countries including Canada, China, Germany, Greece, India, Singapore, Switzerland, Taiwan, and Ukraine.

The master’s in asset management program trains future generations of asset managers to find data-driven solutions to real-world problems. Students receive training in all facets of asset management, including investment theory and practice, portfolio management, and risk management, with a focus on forward-looking quantitative methods and new technologies in this fast-developing field.

Study finds mask-wearing reduces symptomatic COVID-19 infection

A large study in Bangladesh, coauthored by Yale SOM’s Jason Abaluck ’19MBA and Mushfiq Mobarak, professors of economics, found that a campaign to promote mask-wearing reduced symptomatic infections significantly, particularly among older people and those using surgical masks.

The study, which involved more than 340,000 people in 600 villages, was 
conducted by Mobarak and Abaluck in collaboration with the research and policy group Innovations for Poverty Action and scholars from Stanford University, the University of California Berkeley, and other universities.

The randomized study, the first of its kind, tested the effectiveness of a mask-promotion program in Bangladesh in increasing mask use and preventing symptomatic infections.