On the move: Professor Hormoz Movassaghi and five of his students attended New York University's second annual Summit on Global Business. Participation in the conference was by invitation and was limited to 15 schools. Other invited schools included MIT, the London School of Economics and Political Science, Wharton, and Emory University.

Four second-year students and Professor Bill Tastle traveled to Omaha this spring to compete in the National Collegiate Conference of the Association of Information Technology Professionals. Each of the students submitted a paper, and all of their papers were selected for presentation at the conference. More than 100 colleges and universities from across the country had been represented at the conference.

In March, 20 members of the school's chapter of the Financial Management Association visited the New York Stock Exchange, accompanied by Karen Gorewit, manager of the trading room and the school's internship coordinator. The event was hosted by Gary Reed '00 and Michael Sherman '91.

In print: Professors Emil and Vigdis Bóasson are coauthors of a paper to be published in the University of Chicago's prestigious Journal of Business. The paper provides empirical sup- port for Michael Porter's intuitive claim that firms clustered geographically by industry, such as the pharmaceutical firms in New Jersey, outperform firms in the same industry that are geographically isolated. Emil Bóasson holds a Ph.D. in geographic information systems. Vigdis Bóasson, who holds a doctorate in international business, is working toward a second doctorate in finance.

Three articles by School of Business faculty members and alumni appeared in a guest-edited issue of Managerial Finance: Critical Factors and Issues in Emerging Equity Markets. Professors Hormoz Movassaghi and Alka Bramhandkar, together with 2003 graduate Milen Shikov, wrote "Developing Markets for Closed-End Funds: A Comparative Performance Analysis." Professors Abraham Mulugetta and Fahri Unsal, together with Yuko Mulugetta, wrote "Subset of Emerging Equity Markets' Performance in International Equity Markets at Times of Currency Crises." Professors Joseph Cheng and Vigdis Bóasson wrote "Using the Time Weighted Method to Estimate Betas in Emerging Markets."

Professor Unsal invited two students, Kosala Kumara '04 and Serkan Ozturkcan '04, to coauthor a research paper in international business titled "Global Fight against AIDS: The Differential Pricing of Medication, Trips, and the Role of Multinational Agencies." The paper was presented at the Association for Global Business conference during the fall semester and, after a peer review process, received the conference's best-paper designation.

In the spotlight: The Ithaca Downtown Partnership presented its 2003 Downtown Volunteer Award to Karen Gorewit, the school's internship coordinator and manager of the trading room. The award was given "in recognition of dedicated service to downtown Ithaca" for her efforts to supply Ithaca businesses and agencies with student interns. During the 12-month period from summer 2003 to spring 2004, Gorewit placed 41 interns, including 6 who served organizations in downtown Ithaca.