There’s a negative connotation associated with short selling – the act of betting against a stock to perform well. But is this trading practice truly a bad thing? In this episode of All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions , hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen build the case for short selling as a dynamic regulating force in the free market. And an incentive for individuals to investigate and expose fraud. Later in the episode, Jonathan and Jules speak with Marc Co...
Dec 07, 2022•27 min•Ep. 17
Freedom of expression is a constitutional right, but it’s also a valuable business strategy. In this episode of All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions , hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen build the case that without freedom of expression within an organization, the competitiveness of the organization will suffer and ultimately be much worse off without a culture that allows for dissenting opinions. Later in the episode, Jonathan and Jules speak with John Paulson...
Nov 16, 2022•26 min•Ep. 16
Businesses often prioritize shareholder interests to make profit. But this can lead to short-sighted decisions that fail to benefit other stakeholders… right? In this episode of All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions , hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen – and guest Alex Edmans – ask that very question and provide some surprising answers. Whose interests are better aligned with the long-term health of a business: external stakeholders or internal shareholders? Al...
Nov 02, 2022•25 min•Ep. 15
President Biden has promised sweeping debt relief to millions of student loan borrowers. In this episode of All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions , hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen discuss the implications of this policy decision and the ways it could influence behavior for both students and educational institutions. Later in the episode, Jonathan and Jules call in an expert: Sheila Bair, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and Chair of the Federal Dep...
Oct 19, 2022•24 min•Ep. 14
Conventional wisdom tells us that we need regulators to ensure quality work in certain professions. But do consumers really benefit as much as they think from government regulation? In this episode of All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions , hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen investigate the question: Who does regulation help more, consumers or producers? Later in the episode, Jonathan and Jules call in an expert: Maureen Ohlhausen , who chairs the Global Antitr...
Oct 05, 2022•28 min•Ep. 13
Corporations are often characterized as evil entities that exploit workers. But in fact they enable firms to provide job security and thus serve the important role of minimizing risk for individual employees. In this episode of All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions , hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen explore how corporations set employees’ wages based on their job performance while still providing job security by comparing it to an insurance contract. “I think...
Sep 21, 2022•20 min•Ep. 12
Does filing for bankruptcy spell the end for a company? Or is there another way to look at corporate financial distress? In this episode of All Else Equal: Making better decisions , hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen debunk some myths about Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code – and compare the benefits of financing your company with equity or debt. Later, bankruptcy expert Jim Millstein joins the show to talk about corporate restructuring proceedings ...
Sep 07, 2022•28 min•Ep. 11
Are buybacks bad for business? Should firms buy dividends instead, or just not make payouts? In this episode of All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions , hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen debunk myths about buybacks. They explain what a buyback, or share repurchase, is and why companies choose to use them, as well as the implications of the Inflation Reduction Act’s proposal to assess a 1% tax on buybacks. All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions is a podcast pro...
Aug 10, 2022•21 min•Ep. 10
As leaders, how do we know when we've made a mistake? Is it as simple as evaluating whether the outcome was good or bad? In this episode of All Else Equal: Making better decisions, hosts and finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen discuss how risk/reward calculations can help define what is a mistake and what isn't. To talk more in depth about this topic, and how owning up to a mistake plays out inside an investment firm, the hosts interview Hadley Mullin. Mullin is a senior pa...
Jul 12, 2022•23 min•Ep. 9
Competitive markets don’t produce the same level of prosperity for everyone, but economist John Cochrane thinks they give us something more important — incentives. In this episode of All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions , hosts Jules van Binsbergen and Jonathan Berk are joined by John Cochrane, a prominent free-market economist and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. According to Cochrane, competition gives us the incentives to work, serve the needs of others, an...
Jun 07, 2022•32 min•Ep. 8
How can investors play a part in accomplishing social change? In this episode of All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions , hosts Jules van Binsbergen and Jonathan Berk explore what strategies are available to the social-minded investor. When it comes to what’s good for business and what’s good for society, van Binsbergen says, “People really would like to have it both ways.” But as he and Berk explain, it is unlikely that they can. The Impact of Impact Investing working paper referenced in this ...
May 03, 2022•25 min•Ep. 7
In this episode, hosts Jules van Binsbergen and Jonathan Berk discuss the complexities of the corporate income tax with former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who argues for retaining the tax. Summers explains why taxing corporations is one of the most effective tools the federal government has in making sure the wealthy pay their fair share. Might there be room for improvement? Yes, Summers says, but don’t abolish it. “Before we are critical of that tax, we better make awfully sure that we ha...
Apr 19, 2022•27 min•Ep. 6
"The reason people disagree is because they're striving toward a different goal," says mathematician and Nobel Prize winner Robert Aumann. In this episode of All Else Equal, Aumann sits down with finance professors and podcast hosts Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen. "If there's a disagreement in the room at the end of a discussion, someone in the room is making a mistake," says Berk. Submit your questions to the show here: https://bit.ly/AllElseEqual Find All Else Equal on the web: https:/...
Apr 05, 2022•34 min•Ep. 5
When it comes to investments, value sometimes resides in unlikely places. Pete Briger, CEO of Fortress Investment Group, specializes in buying bad debt and spinning it into gold. In this episode of All Else Equal , Briger, who dubs himself a “garbage collector,” describes how he makes decisions and why being prepared to act quickly and decisively is crucial for success. In a market bristling with competitors, “the competitive edge you get may be expressed in the context of days,” Briger says. Su...
Mar 22, 2022•27 min•Ep. 4
Picking stocks is a famously difficult exercise, not for the faint of heart. So how do investment professionals make decisions about which stocks to buy? In this episode of All Else Equal , professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen interview Cliff Asness, cofounder and chief investment officer at AQR Capital Management, about his decision-making strategy. Fundamentally, Asness says, success depends on the ability to “withstand pain” when your investments perform poorly and the confidence...
Mar 08, 2022•28 min•Ep. 3
Personnel decisions can be some of the toughest a manager will make. What are the attributes you should look for when building a team? In this episode of All Else Equal , professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen interview former NBA general manager Billy King about how he approached player evaluation. Statistics are an important measure of performance, but King says he also tried to assess how individual players made the players around them better. King invokes the philosophy of his men...
Feb 22, 2022•17 min•Ep. 2
When the scientific method began to be applied widely hundreds of years ago, innovation bloomed. Today, those same principles inform business leaders who rely on data analysis to set and shape direction. In this inaugural episode of All Else Equal , professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen speak with Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat about how to — and how not to — use data to make decisions. “It’s too easy to just anchor on a set of numbers,” Porat says. “Most important is to look at the trends ...
Feb 07, 2022•24 min•Ep. 1
Join finance professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen in a conversation with prominent business leaders about common flaws in the decision making process and what to do about them. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .
Jan 31, 2022•2 min
