Esteemed Economist Thomas Cooley to Lead Leonard N. Stern School of Business New York University President John Sexton today announced the appointment of Thomas Cooley, a noted economist, as dean of NYU’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business. Professor Cooley, President of the Society for Economic Dynamics and a Fellow of the Econometric Society, has appointments in the economics departments of both NYU’s Stern School and its Faculty of Arts and Science. He has received numerous awards for his teaching and is recognized as a national leader both in macroeconomic theory and business education. He will assume the deanship August 15.
Upon the announcement early last winter by the current dean, George Daly, that he would step down at the end of the academic year, the University began a national search for a new dean that involved faculty, students, trustees, and administrators. Professor Cooley, a faculty member at Stern since 1999, stood out for the excellence of his scholarship, his intellectual prowess, his compelling teaching, and his demonstrable leadership abilities.
The Stern School is among the highest ranked business schools in the US, and its undergraduate program one of only a few business programs offered at top universities is among the most highly competitive programs in the country.
In announcing the selection, NYU President Sexton said, “The Stern School of Business is renowned in the business community for the excellence of its programs. It can be seen in the influence of the Stern faculty on generations of business people, in the high regard in which the scholarship of its faculty is held, in the important corporate positions held by its graduates, and in the strong sense of dedication and affiliation that its alumni feel for the school.
“I am very pleased that Tom Cooley will serve as Stern’s next dean. He is the right person to continue to propel the school upward, he is the right person to recognize the new directions in which the school must go, and he is the right person to make Stern a key part of our University-wide effort to create at NYU one of the first examples of the 21st century university.
“Under the leadership of Professor Martin Gruber, himself a leading scholar, the search for a new dean for Stern was thorough and wide-ranging: it examined dozens of excellent candidates for this important post. But Tom Cooley stood out for his exceptional qualifications as a scholar, teacher, administrator, and leader.
“All the members of the search committee — and in particular Professor Gruber — deserve our gratitude for the fine job they did. Understandably, many were interested in the deanship of this great school; the committee’s great talent was demonstrated in choosing just the right person.
“I also want to thank my colleague George Daly, whose many years of outstanding leadership improved the Stern School greatly, and whose willingness to stay on to consult during the transition to a new dean will be of enormous help.”
Martin Lipton, chair of the NYU Board of Trustees, said, “This is an outstanding appointment. We are a distinctly global university, and we are undeniably a New York university; both realms esteem the accomplished businessperson. NYU’s Stern School of Business is widely admired for the talented, smart, aggressive, ethical businesspeople it produces. I expect Tom Cooley will build on Stern’s already impressive reputation and make it even greater.”
David McLaughlin, NYU’s provost, said, “Tom Cooley is an outstanding scholar and a highly regarded member of two of our University’s faculties. He has the confidence of the entire Stern community, and I am certain that he will be an exceptional dean and an excellent representative of the views of Stern’s faculty.”
Professor Gruber, a member of the Stern School faculty since 1965, said, “My committee is delighted with the outcome of the dean search process. Tom Cooley is an outstanding scholar whose intellectual powers and academic background are ideally suited to continue our progress on the path to excellence.
“The committee started with a list of more than 50 candidates for the position. Nine candidates were brought to the University to be interviewed. Five candidates were then interviewed by four faculty committees, a committee of students, a committee of staff, and a committee of Overseers and Trustees at the University. While all of the candidates were viewed as excellent candidates, Tom Cooley stood out as a truly exceptional candidate. His scholarly accomplishment, his intellect, and his experience at other universities as well as at Stern mean that he is ideally suited for the role of dean.”
William Berkley, chair of the Board of Overseers of the Stern School, said, “In almost all businesses, the asset indisputably of greatest value is people possessing talent, intelligence, an excellent background, and leadership. Tom Cooley possesses all these attributes in enormous quantities; but more than that, I am entirely confident that he can instill these characteristics in the young men and women who attend Stern, and that is why his selection as dean is so outstanding.”
Professor Cooley said, “Stern’s faculty, students, alumni and location make it one of the most exciting if not the most exciting centers for business learning in the world, and I’m delighted and honored to be named dean. It has been my privilege to be part of Stern for several years and to witness first hand the energy and talent that has earned the school its stellar reputation. I look forward to working with the Stern and University communities to extend the successes of my predecessors and bring the school to the next level of excellence.” Thomas Cooley is the Paganelli-Bull Professor of Economics at the Stern School of Business, the chair of the economics department at Stern, and a professor of economics at the Faculty of Arts and Science at New York University. He has teaching and research interests in macroeconomics, monetary theory, and applied general equilibrium theory. Prior to joining NYU, he held faculty positions at the University of Rochester in both the business school and the faculty of arts and science, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of California at Santa Barbara. Additionally, he was director of the Bradley Policy Research Center at the University of Rochester.
Thomas Cooley has co-authored two books and has published papers in many scholarly journals. Recent publications include: “Financial Markets and Firm Dynamics,” with Vincenzo Quadrini, American Economic Review, December 2001; “The Costs of Losing Monetary Independence: The Case of Mexico,” with Vincenzo Quadrini, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, May, 2000; “A Neoclassical Model of the Phillips Curve Relation,” with Vincenzo Quadrini, Journal of Monetary Economics, 1999, 4, 165-193; “A Positive Theory of Social Security Based on Reputation,” with Jorge Soares, Journal of Political Economy, 1999, 107, 135-160; “Will Social Security Survive the Baby Boom?” with Jorge Soares, 1996, Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, 45, 89-121; “Post-War British Economic Growth and The Legacy of Keynes,” with Lee Ohanian, Journal of Political Economy, 1997, 105, 439-472; “The Welfare Costs of Nominal Wage Contracting,” with Jang-Ok Cho and Louis Phaneuf, Review of Economic Studies, 1997, 64, 465-484; “The Replacement Problem,” with Jeremy Greenwood and Mehmet Yorukoglu, December 1997, Journal of Monetary Economics; “Calibrated Models,” Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 1997, 13, 3, 55-69; “Unanticipated Money Shocks and the Business Cycle Reconsidered,” with Gary Hansen, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 1997, 29, 4, 624-648; and Frontiers of Business Cycle Research, editor, Princeton University Press, January 1995, among others.
He was the founding editor of the Review of Economic Dynamics, and a member of the advisory board of the Journal of Monetary Economics. He is the President of the Society for Economic Dynamics, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, and a member of the American Economic Association. He was an Irving Scholar and a National Science Foundation Fellow. Professor Cooley is also the recipient of a doctorate, honoris causa, from the Stockholm School of Economics.
Professor Cooley’s research has been supported by numerous government grants, the most recent being a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation.
He received a B.S. in engineering science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and both an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.
The New York University Stern School of Business is a world leader in business education and prides itself on embodying a global perspective in its approach to teaching. Nearly half of the faculty come from around the world, and NYU Stern consistently attracts a diverse and international student body. Situated in the heart of NYC’s Greenwich Village, NYU Stern maximizes its location through partnerships with business and its leaders from Wall Street and the international business community to provide a value-added, “real world” business education. In its more than 100 years as a premier educational institution, NYU Stern has graduated many alumni who are prominent among the ranks of America’s top CEOs.
New York University was established in 1831 and is one of America’s leading research universities. It is one of the largest and most selective private universities, and it has more international students than any other college or university in the U.S. Through its 13 schools and colleges, NYU conducts research and provides education in the arts and sciences, law, medicine, business, dentistry, education, nursing, the cinematic and dramatic arts, music, public administration, social work, and continuing and professional studies, among other areas.