My online radio-station bombards me with advertisements for DSW shoes and Stanford University's online Leadership and Management Certificates and Courses. (I am part of an interesting demographic.) My natural inclination toward procrastination made me follow Stanford's links. For a little over (US$) 10K and B average over three courses, you can obtain a Financial Risk Analysis and Management Graduate Certificate. (There are serious prerequisites.) Not Stanford's Business School or Economics department, but the statistics department sponsors this certificate, which is a bit surprising because the certificate "gives you the tools you need to prepare for and weather financial crisis [sic] and regulatory reforms." I didn't know statisticians were good at teaching skills that allow you to play regulatory reforms. [The statistics department does have depth in financial mathematics (and proudly works with affiliates from the financial sector).] Of course, as regular readers of this blog know, I also have a pretty grim view of finance theory, which assumes that mathematical technique can tame genuine uncertainty (by relying on various mathematical notions of randomness). Luckily, the rich rewards available in statistics are given back to the Stanford Community (and indirectly the rest of us): for, the statistics department at Stanford does "a free, drop-in consulting service to members of the University community. Under the supervision of a senior faculty member, statistics doctoral candidates and experienced master's students provide assistance" in various lines of research.
There are, of course, many things wrong with our current financial system. But we should not ignore the ways in which academics can sell conceptual technologies without reputational risk or (worse) being held liable for the social damage done with these. (No doubt Stanford's statisticians are not alone for trying to cash in.)
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