Ross Featured In the News - Week of Dec. 22

Week Ending Dec. 22

Dec. 19 - TIME - Why Gift-Giving Makes You Anxious (Scott Rick) 
Part of the problem is that occasions that involve gift-giving are steeped in uncertainty. If it’s an occasion like Christmas, where people are simultaneously shopping for each other, people might be nervous about whether the gift they give will be in the same category as the gift they will also receive.

Another issue is that there are just so many opportunities to get gift-giving wrong. For example, if you’re a married parent in the U.S., you’ll likely need to navigate at least five gift-giving occasions per year: your spouse’s birthday, your anniversary, Valentine's Day, perhaps Mother's and Father's Day, and the December holidays. Eventually, you’re probably going to give a bad gift, and that bad gift might overshadow the many good gifts you’ve given.

Dec. 19 - Detroit News - Wanted: Macomb Co. Recruits Engineers in Other States to Bolster Defense Industry (Cindy Schipani)
Cindy Schipani, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, said the first step in bringing out-of-state workers to Macomb County is making people aware of the job opportunities in the county.

“People have to become aware before they’re going to start doing their own investigation,” she said.

The companies will then have to offer the young professionals “what they need” ― good pay and benefits, Schipani said.

Dec. 18 - Marketplace - Nasdaq, S&P 500 Update Stock Lists to Reflect Today’s Market (Paolo Pasquariello)
Stock indexes help us get a quick read on how publicly traded corporations are doing as a whole, said Paolo Pasquariello, a professor of finance at the University of Michigan.

“Think of it as a gauge or a thermometer on the health of markets at any point in time,” he said.

“And little by little, that has become basically what the vast majority of us do on a daily basis,” rather than betting on individual stocks, said Pasquariello at the University of Michigan.

Dec. 17 - Cost of Living with Paul Haavardsrud - The Rush for Plush (Aradhna Krishna)
They're soft, fluffy and flying off shelves. Over the last four years, plush toy sales have jumped more than 70 percent. That's thanks to "kidults" — adults who like kid stuff.

Aradhna Krishna says technology has changed childhoold play: “right from a very young age, there is much less social interaction and more interaction with devices.”

Plush toys are an anecdote to the digital world. Krishna says, “the human body creates a want for comfort from the time we are born. It is evolutionary in nature.”

Dec. 15 - American Banker - Big Banks Fret Over Capital Disparities Between U.S., U.K. (Jeremy Kress)
Jeremy Kress, a business law professor at the University of Michigan and a former Fed lawyer, said similar complaints about the "gold-plating" of U.S. regulations relative to international standards arose after the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010 and the initial iteration of Basel III in 2013. Yet, since then, U.S. banks have seen higher stock prices, wider net interest margins and better returns on assets than banks in the U.K. and continental Europe.

"U.S. banks' strong performance relative to European competitors makes sense, since capital makes our financial system strong. The real risk to international competitiveness is lax prudential regulation," Kress said. "In fact, the trend of U.S. banks outperforming European banks reversed in 2023, when the U.S. experienced a banking crisis due, in part, to lax regulation."

Dec. 22 - Taraji P. Henson Defends Oprah Over Racial Pay Disparity Claims (Marcus Collins)

According to Marcus Collins, clinical marketing professor at the University of Michigan and author of For The Culture, pay in Hollywood discriminates across racial and gender lines.

"Leaked salary information provided evidence to what was once only anecdotal," he told Newsweek. "This is an age-old tale of inequality. People of color and underestimated communities have long been under-compensated relative to their white counterparts—not just in Hollywood but in just about every industry imaginable, except perhaps sports."

Collins believes this is due to Hollywood relying on "gut" instinct, with internal biases leading to people of color being discriminated against.

"This equates to Black talent being underpaid, underfunded, and under-supported in Hollywood and corporate America at large," he said.

"Racism and discrimination are so intrinsically woven into our society and its institutions that it's almost impossible to identify where one starts and the other begins."