School Notes: School of Management
March/April 2011

Yale SOM receives largest gift in school history

Construction on the new SOM campus will proceed as planned, thanks to a $50 million gift—the largest gift in the school’s history. Edward P. (Ned) Evans ’64, who passed away on December 31, made the gift pledge just weeks before he died. A private investor before his death, Evans was the chair and CEO of publishing house Macmillan Inc. from 1979 to 1989. He made a significant gift in 1991 to support the renovation and expansion of the Yale University Press building, which was recognized with the naming of the Evans Wing. He has also contributed generously to the renovation of the residential colleges. This new gift to the university will be recognized with the naming of the new SOM facility as Edward P. Evans Hall. (For a Yale Alumni Magazine report on this story, see page 15.)

Two faculty members win research award

Judith Chevalier, William S. Beinecke Professor of Finance and Economics, and Dina Mayzlin, associate professor of marketing, received the 2011 William F. O’Dell Award for their study “The Effect of Word of Mouth on Sales: Online Book Reviews.” The 2011 O’Dell Award honors the Journal of Marketing Research article published in 2006 “that has made the most significant long-term contribution to marketing theory, methodology, and/or practice.” In the study, Chevalier and Mayzlin examined the effect of consumer reviews on book sales at Amazon.com and the Barnes and Noble website and found that this community content does have an impact on what consumers buy. Read the study at http://mba.yale.edu/wordofmouth.

Yale team presents recommendations on foreclosure crisis

On November 30, a group led by several Yale SOM faculty presented a white paper on Capitol Hill aimed at addressing the ongoing foreclosure crisis and the resulting economic distress in minority communities. The event, attended by members of Congress, Obama administration officials, federal regulators, and business and nonprofit leaders, marked the culmination of work begun when Sharon Pratt, former Washington, DC, mayor and president of the Opportunity Funding Corporation, contacted Constance E. Bagley, professor in the practice of law and management at Yale SOM, about pulling together a group to study the issue.

Over six months, Bagley teamed with faculty and students from SOM and Yale Law School to study the causes and effects of the crisis within African American and Hispanic communities and search for strategies to deal with it. The paper makes ten key recommendations, including strengthening oversight of current programs, reforming bankruptcy laws, and increasing regulation on the origination of mortgages. Read the white paper: http://mba.yale.edu/crisiswhitepaper.