School Notes: School of Management
January/February 2015

Yale Center Beijing opens

Yale opened the new Yale Center Beijing on October 27 with a two-day conference that featured panel discussions on major social issues facing China and the world, including the environment, technology, health care, and the role of the arts in society.

Speaking at the opening, Yale University president Peter Salovey said the center—which is being managed by Yale SOM—represents the university’s commitment to creating a space where international collaboration across academic disciplines and professions will flourish. “It’s in fact our first university-wide center outside the United States. And we’ve come here to Beijing because the China connection has been and remains the most important component of Yale’s internationalization strategy over the last decade.” 

SOM hosts case competition

Eleven student teams from around the nation convened at SOM on November 14 to take part in the school’s inaugural National Low Carbon Institutional Investing Case Competition. Spearheaded by Yale SOM’s student Responsible Investing Group and the school’s International Center for Finance, the competition was the first of its kind in the United States.

The teams were asked to devise a strategy to help a hypothetical university lower the carbon intensity of its investment portfolio, in order to help address the risks that climate change poses to the university’s endowment and to society as a whole. A panel of judges evaluated the teams, focusing on analysis and integration of carbon emissions metrics as well as the expected performance of the proposed portfolio scenarios. The daylong event also included a series of panel discussions on low-carbon investing, featuring industry and academic speakers. A student team from New York University Stern School of Business won the competition. 

Nierenberg professor named

Fiona Scott Morton ’89, a member of the Yale School of Management economics faculty since 1999, has been named the Theodore Nierenberg Professor of Economics. Her research is in the area of empirical industrial organization, and her papers have examined competition in a variety of industries, including health care, online commerce, automobiles, pharmaceuticals, funeral services and supplies, magazines, and wine. The Theodore Nierenberg Chair was established with a generous gift from David Nierenberg ’75, ’78JD, commemorating his father’s lifelong devotion to family, community, and country.