women

Hotness Metrics: Emily Oster Reader Poll

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We asked and you answered. Commenters were evenly divided between finding Bright Young Thing Emily Oster Cute and Not Cute nor Hot. But with additional ballots for “could get hot,” “IB Analyst hot” and “country club hot” we’re almost ready to declare Emily Oster officially “Fetching.”
But why not take this to a broader vote? So below please vote on Emily Oster’s Hotness Metrics.

    Foxy Economists Making Field Less Dull

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    foxyoster.jpgWe’re pretty sure that Emily Oster is more than just a set of nice eyes and a pretty smile. But we can’t get over how every time we hear about her someone mentions that she’s a hottie. Yesterday’s New York Times story follows the typical pattern: mention her youth, her marital status (she married the boyfriend who helped her come up with her PhD thesis), and talk about how popular she is. It’s probably no good to directly mention her looks, so better to simply run the photo.
    But we’re not the New York Times, and so we’ll ask the question directly: is Emily Oster genuinely hot or just, you know, economist hot?
    The Future of Economics Isn’t So Dismal [New York Times]

      Women on Wall Street: It Still Kind Of Sucks

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      We were looking forward to reading Selling Women Short Gender and Money on Wall Street, the new book by Louise Marie Roth about why women continue to underperform men on Wall Street. A good book on Wall Street sexism should have enough outlandish stories–women eating pickles soaked in moisturizer on the trading floor–to get you through any dinner party. These are great because you can tell a funny story while deploring the underlying facts. For once, you get to be liberal and funny at the same time.
      Unfortunately, it seems that Roth’s book is boring, full of numbers and explanations but without the raunch.

      The book started as Roth’s dissertation and at times gets bogged down in the background that she must have felt was necessary for academic readers. It is excessive to spend 13 pages explaining what bankers, traders and analysts do. Her sample size is also small and a few tales of wild Wall Street excess would have leavened the book’s earnest tone. But overall, Selling Women Short is a thoughtful examination of how ostensibly merit-based systems can result in unequal outcomes.

      Selling Women Short [Financial Times]

        Top Goldman Gal Dumps Bank

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        suzannenorajohnson.jpgGoldman Sachs announced the loss of a second member of its 23-member management committee in as many weeks. Suzanne Nora Johnson, the highest-ranking woman at the firm, will leave in January.
        Since Nora Johnson came up through Goldman’s investment banking division, her news of her departure following so closely on the resignation of Scott Kapnick, who was one of three co-heads of investment banking at Goldman, adds to the impression that the firm is still hemorrhaging senior investment bankers disgruntled with the current leadership.
        Bloomberg’s story alludes to the alleged power struggle without referring to it directly.

        Goldman, the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, named Lloyd Blankfein as chairman and chief executive officer in June after Henry Paulson left to become U.S. Treasury Secretary. Blankfein, a former trading chief, named Gary Cohn and Jon Winkelried, two former trading executives, as his top deputies and reorganized management in Europe and Asia.

        Goldman’s Suzanne Nora Johnson Resigns After 21 Years [Bloomberg]

          • 29 Nov 2006 at 9:30 AM
          • women

          As It Turns Out, Being A Woman On Wall Street Still Kind Of Sucks

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          Compensation on Wall Street is rarely based solely on how much money one individual brings in. Wall Street types work in teams; being on a profitable team will earn you a big bonus. Unfortunately, teams in her survey rarely shared, say, compatible areas of expertise. Instead, they tended to form around shared social characteristics—like all being guys from the south who played sports and enjoyed strip clubs in their spare time. Women reported being systematically pushed toward more “female-friendly” teams and areas of their firms. These areas, like equity research and public finance, tended to feature lower compensation. Perhaps that’s because they didn’t generate as much fee revenue from clients, perhaps it’s because they were dominated by women, or perhaps it is because these areas lack social capital, ties to the firm higher-ups. Regardless, such assignments lowered women’s compensation.
          Firms also systematically assigned women to work with women-owned business clients. This makes perfect sense (minority Wall Street workers also reported being assigned to minority-owned business clients; higher-ups assumed this would make the clients feel more comfortable). However, since women-owned and minority-owned businesses tend to be less capitalized than other businesses, these clients were less lucrative, which led to lower bonuses. In addition, [Author of What Are Women Worth Louise Marie] Roth reports, much of the average Wall Street bonus is determined by “360 degree” feedback from co-workers. Roth found that, systematically, people gave higher performance reviews to people who looked like them. Since men continued to dominate Wall Street through the 1990′s, men received better reviews.
          What Are Women Worth [The American]

            Study Shows Having Girl Women Directors Enhances Girliness Corporate Governance

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            manlaw.jpgWe’ve been to enough board meetings that look like those Miller Lite “Man Law” commercials to know that having more women on corporate boards is probably a good idea. But we’re a bit skeptical about this recent study sponsored by TIAA-CREF which claims to demonstrate that having three or more women on the board “enhances corporate governance.”
            But before we get all grumpy about this, here’s a summary from the Conglomerate blog of what the study shows.

            The study was based on interviews with 12 CEOs, 50 women directors, and seven corporate secretaries of Fortune 1000 companies. The study found that women impact board governance in at least three ways, (1) by bringing different perspectives into boardroom discussions, including the perspectives of multiple stakeholders, (2) raising difficult issues–that is the study found that difficult problems are less likely to be ignored when women are in the board room, and (3) by altering the dynamics in the board room to create more open and collaborative discussions, thereby allowing management to hear board concerns without feeling defensive.

            Well, we suppose it’s nice that the women bring “different perspectives,” raise “difficult problems” and create “more open and collaborative discussions.” But what’s all this got to do with enhancing corporate governance? We’ve only read the executive summary, so maybe there’s harder data in the study than we’ve come across, but we can’t help but suspect that these things are themselves considered “enhanced corporate governance.” Because the way that phrase is used is often as a cover for promoting various political or social agendas rather than as finding better ways to deliver value to shareholders.
            Critical Mass on Corporate Boards [pdf]

              As It Turns Out, Women Hate Wall Street

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              Ah yes. Always the problem. Wall Street executives trying to figure out to “retain” the “top-flight” women “they spend bundles to attract.”

              Wall Street is cutting edge when it comes to innovating and monetizing new ideas related to finance. Not so when it comes to women. The rough-and-tumble world of high finance remains among the handful of industries that have not figured out how to retain the top-flight talent they spend bundles to attract.
              According to data provided by nine leading Wall Street banks to The New York Times this year, women, on average, made up 33 percent of analysts, a job filled mostly by those just out of college. Women represent 25 percent of associates (those with M.B.A.’s) and 14 percent of managing directors.
              The reasons are, of course, complicated. Wall Street is among those industries not conducive to a balance between work and life, a critical factor for many women in their 30s and 40s. (Men complain, too, but more women say they leave as a result of it.) Midlevel talent gets lost in a sea of mediocre management. Younger women cite different priorities — changing the world rather than servicing it at its top levels.

              And, of course, no discussion of women on Wall Street is complete without the mandatory mention of the expensing strippers issue.
              Wall Street is starting to respond to these changes, but at the glacial pace one might expect of an industry that has to explain to its employees in explicit terms that outings to strip clubs cannot be expensed.

              This Time the Wheeling and Dealing Wasn’t in the Men’s Room [New York Times]