Classes resumed at Dartmouth this week.  I'm teaching two sections of Economics 36, a mid-level course designed to give students mastery of the basics of diversification, hedging, and corporate finance.  It's an interesting time to be immersed in that material.  The students were only mildly amused when I suggested that the higher demand for turnaround specialists might be enough to offset the lower demand for investment analysts.

Outside the classroom, the Rockefeller Center, where I am the director, has jumped into the term with some interesting public lectures.  Last evening, we had the pleasure of welcoming Dr. Montgomery McFate to speak about the "Human Terrain System" in Iraq and Afghanistan.  More students should see the value of careful social science research in challenging situations like counterinsurgency.  They shouldn't be (and weren't) shielded from a discussion of the ethical issues that arise in these situations.  You can read about her presentation here.

From our local paper, a nice article about Hank Paulson, Dartmouth Class of 1968, who may wish his job were as uncomplicated as his days of playing football in college:

Hanover -- More than 40 years ago, a rugged but undersized Hank Paulson regularly dominated bigger Ivy League opponents as an All-East offensive tackle on the Dartmouth College football team.

Today, Secretary of the Treasury Henry M. Paulson Jr., 62, is trying to open some daylight for the American economy, meeting with Capitol Hill leaders on Thursday night and standing by President Bush at the White House Friday to announce details of an unprecedented Wall Street bailout.

Former teammates and classmates of Paulson, who graduated from Dartmouth in 1968 as an English major, describe a man of great determination, always prepared, with a quiet manner and humor.

Enjoy!

Sweet!

Money(!) quote:

Top employers for Dartmouth's 2008 graduating class include Bain, Goldman Sachs and McKinsey, which are almost all high-paying posts. Yet two other big employers of recent grads fall on the other end of the pay scale: Teach for America and the Peace Corps. Both organizations are focused on helping the less fortunate and require two-year commitments. So how do Dartmouth grads, many starting at nonprofits, leapfrog their peers when it comes to compensation as they gain more experience?

"Dartmouth produces well-rounded people who can move into senior-level positions easily," says Monica Wilson, associate director of career services at the school. Another important factor in the success of Dartmouth grads is an extremely tight and loyal alumni network. Dartmouth is located in tiny Hanover, N.H., and is the smallest of the Ivy League schools with 4,100 undergrad students enrolled. Yet the alumni network is extremely impressive and stretches from Daniel Webster to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson during its 239 year history. Other prominent grads include General Electric head Jeffrey Immelt, eBay chief John Donahoe and former IBM boss Louis Gerstner. 

Let the record show that I arrived at Dartmouth 14 years ago this week and taught my first finance class to members of the class of 1995 shortly thereafter.  I'm surprised it had such an immediate impact on these statistics ...

In my day job, I'm the director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College.  Tomorrow marks the 100th anniversary of Rockefeller's birth.  To commemorate the occasion, The New York Times published an op-ed by noted historian Richard Norton Smith, who spoke at our Centennial events back in April.  Smith's conclusion is one with which I wholeheartedly agree:

Three decades later, “Rockefeller Republican” is widely seen as a contradiction in terms. Largely forgotten is the original meaning of the phrase, a counterintuitive coupling of late ’50s fiscal responsibility and early ’60s social justice — the same formula espoused by a majority of today’s electorate, for whom solving problems and forging consensus takes precedence over ideological purity.

This week, the Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth (where my day job is to be the director) has been hosting a conference, "Going to Extremes: The Fate of the Political Center in American Politics." The papers can be found here. The discussion has been excellent--lots of interesting ideas for an economist to pick up from a group of thoughtful political scientists.

Toward the end of the conference, a discussant brought out a contrast between a centrist's identification with his party and with his constituency.  What does the centrist do if the party's position disagrees with his constituents' preferences?  The answer, spoken from the party leadership to the representative, used to be, "Vote with your constituency, because we want you back."  Now, I'm not so sure.

Richard Parsons, chairman and former CEO of Time Warner, visited the Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth yesterday to meet with students and give a public lecture on "Entrepreneurship in the Digital Age."  There is no one who has been closer to the interface between the old and new economies over the last decade, and his remarks did not disappoint.  The theme of the talk is well summarized by this passage from the story in this morning's issue of The Dartmouth:

Parsons also spoke on how the Internet has lowered the entry barrier for new ideas, leaving the marketplace “wide open for entrepreneurs.” While investment capital for new ideas has spread since the 1990s, he said, technology has simultaneously made that capital less necessary.