Chicago Booth to host live webcast of ‘Future of Markets’

How much regulation do financial markets really need? Are government stimulus programs effective? Should bank executives’ pay be restricted?

Those are a few of the questions that will be discussed during a live webcast from Chicago Booth’s 57th annual management conference Friday, May 29. The opening session, “The Future of Markets,” will be webcast live from the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers beginning at 12:45 p.m. at http://ChicagoBooth.edu/mc/2009/coverage.

More than 1,000 people are expected to attend the event, which will feature six senior faculty members in a discussion moderated by Ray Suarez (A.M.,’93), senior correspondent for “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.”

“The opening panel discussion will capture aspects of the extensive ongoing dialogue among Chicago Booth faculty on current economic and finance issues,” said Edward Snyder, Dean of Chicago Booth.

Conference participants will be examining the future of equity markets, the health of the banking industry, the outlook for commercial real estate and other current business topics.

The six speakers for the live webcast of “The Future of Markets” are:

• Raghuram Rajan, the Eric J. Gleacher Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at Chicago Booth and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.
• Gary Becker, University Professor in Economics and Sociology, and Chicago Booth, and recipient of the 1992 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
• Anil Kashyap, the Edward Eagle Brown Professor of Economics and Finance at Chicago Booth, and a banking expert who is doing research on the recovery from the banking crisis.
• Kevin Murphy, the George J. Stigler Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at Chicago Booth, and the first business school professor to receive a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant.”
• Steven Kaplan, the Neubauer Family Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at Chicago Booth, and a leading expert on executive pay, corporate governance, private equity and other areas.
• Marianne Bertrand, the Fred G. Steingraber/A.T. Kearney Professor of Economics, and a recipient of the Elaine Bennett Research Prize from the American Economic Association.

“The panelists have weighed in on the pressing issues of the day in forums throughout the world,” Snyder said. “Their debate-shaping ideas have expanded our intellectual capital and will culminate in a thought-provoking dialogue that everyone can watch.”

The conference also will feature a special forum on the future of equity markets and other topics with Eugene Fama, the Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance and founder of the efficient market theory, and Snyder, the George Pratt Shultz Professor of Economics. Video of this session will be available at http://ChicagoBooth.edu/mc/2009/coverage beginning Monday, June 1. The video from the live webcast portion of the conference also will be archived on the site for later viewing.

Other sessions at the conference include “The Lessons of Recession: The Road Ahead for Banks and the Economy” and “Private Equity: Will it Survive?”

Details of the conference can be found at www.ChicagoBooth.edu/mc.