Yale SOM and SOMAA host the New York City Unveiling of Professor Robert Shiller's New Book

The Yale School of Management's International Center for Finance and the Yale SOM Alumni Association of New York City, hosted a lively discussion of Professor Robert Shiller's new book, The New Financial Order: Risk in the 21st Century, on April 8th at theYale Club of New York City. In the company of more than 300 business leaders, alumni, and friends of the school, Professor Shiller unveiled his plan for our financial security by describing new ways to hedge against the ever-increasing risks that society faces. His previous book, the bestselling Irrational Exuberance, generated much interest around the world and warned of the likely explosion of the stock market bubble in the spring of 2000, and published a day before the market crash.

The discussion, moderated by William Goetzmann, Director of the Yale School of Management's International Center for Finance, included Roger Ibbotson, Professor in the Practice of Finance; Robert J. Shiller, Fellow, International Center for Finance; and Herbert M. Allison, Jr., Chairman and CEO, TIAA-CREF and member of the Yale School of Management Advisory Board.

In Irrational Exuberance, Robert Shiller cautioned that society's obsession with the stock market was fueling the volatility that has since made a roller coaster of the financial system. Less noted, was Shiller's admonition that infatuation with the stock market distracts us from the more durable economic prospects which lie in the hidden potential of real assets, such as income from livelihoods and homes.

In his new book, The New Financial Order, Shiller describes new ways to use information technology and new financial instruments to hedge against a variety of risks that society faces - risk of job loss, risk of declining home values, macroeconomic risks, and much more. Informed by a comprehensive risk information database, this new financial order would include global markets for trading risks and exploiting myriad new financial opportunities, from inequality insurance to intergenerational social security. Just as developments in insuring risks to life, health, and catastrophe have given us a quality of life unimaginable a century ago, Shiller's plan for securing crucial assets promises to substantially enrich our condition.

The Yale School of Management's International Center for Finance (ICF) focuses its research on the critical issues facing the global financial community, including topics such as the development of capital markets, the functioning of the business corporation, how investment decisions are made, and how security prices evolve.

Drawing on the scholarship of distinguished scholars from throughout Yale University, the ICF is the only leading academic institution in the United States that combines interdisciplinary research in its study of finance.

The Yale SOM Alumni Association (SOMAA) is an independent volunteer organization that supplements the resources and services available from the school's Alumni Affair Office. Its mission is to support the school and its mission of "educating leaders for business and society" by building recognition and strengthening connections for the school within the broader Yale community, in alumni communities, across geographic regions and across management fields and sectors. The New York City Chapter organizes professional and social networking events for over 1,200 SOM alumni who live and work in the New York Metro area.