HEC in the press

There's little doubt that government-ordered business shutdowns to stop the spread of Covid-19 damaged the US economy, but the exact cost has not been clear.

Researchers from HEC Paris business school and Bocconi University in Milan have reached a sobering calculation: the closures beginning at the pandemic's onset in March through May saved 29,000 lives -- at a cost of $169 billion, or around $6 million per person, writes the AFP news agency. 

The pandemic appears to have accelerated many firms’ thinking on “Working from Anywhere”. Many high-tech companies have promoted the idea of allowing permanent remote working to employees post-pandemic. But decision-makers need to weigh up this enthusiasm with several potentially negative knock-on effects, writes HEC Paris Professor John Mawdsley, in an op-ed for Forbes. 

HEC Paris Professor of European law Alberto Alemanno comments on Poland's and Hungary's veto on the European budget over new rules linking funding to rule of law. 

According to Poets & Quants, Masters in Management (MiM) graduates are emerging as the forerunners of the current start-up scene. HEC Paris' Meghdut Chowdhury has been named as one of Poets & Quants' top MiM entrepreneurs of 2020. 

HEC Paris professors Sihem Jouini and Thomas Paris describe four key stages of the creative process that the creative industries combine and iterate, in an op-ed for Forbes. 

HEC Paris marketing professor Anne Sophie Bayle-Tourtoulou, who teaches neuroscience at HEC Paris, explains how to bypass the brain's natural processes to make better decisions, in an interview with Brazilian newspaper Epoca Negocios. 

“Our world is intimately global, interconnected and diverse. Being mindful, skillful and respectful when managing across cultures is a prerequisite to purposeful, impactful leadership.” That’s according to Anne-Valérie Corboz, HEC Paris’ dean for executive education. Many of her courses are geared towards helping managers to lead better across cultures, through diverse intakes of students whose perspectives enrich the learning experience in group discussion, writes Executive Courses. 

Tomasz Michalski, an associate professor in the Economics and Decision Sciences Department at HEC Paris, feels that some government measures are ineffective to fight against the spread of Covid-19, such as curfews after 9pm. "This has meant that for many restaurants and bars, life shifted to 6pm-9pm, with the spread of the virus unchecked," he says, in an interview with China Daily. 

According to Tomasz Michalski, professor of economics at HEC Paris, the upcoming lockdown in France will be less economically damaging than the first. That's mostly because primary and secondary schools will stay open, allowing "around 13% of the workforce that have little kids - and that are at their most productive age - continue working." Small and medium businesses," however, are going to be hard-hit by the new confinement, he adds, in an live interview with Euronews. 

“The shock is terrible especially for small and medium-sized firms, which are getting closed in the most important time of the year, before (the) holidays,” comments Tomasz Michalski, professor of economics at HEC Paris business school, on the French government's decision to impose a second lockdown, in an interview with CNBC.