The Wharton School

NEWS: We are launching the Dr. Bruce I. Jacobs Master of Science in Quantitative Finance, our first new degree offering in 50 years: whr.tn/46nfF3w

The one-year #JacobsMSQF program is initially intended for @Penn students with a quantitative background and career aspirations in quantitative asset management and allied fields, with the application now open for the inaugural cohort starting Fall 2026.

The program is funded by the generosity of philanthropist and #WhartonGrad Dr. Bruce I. Jacobs (G’79, GRW’86), whose latest gift of $60 million is the largest single gift in school history and builds upon his longstanding support of quantitative finance initiatives at Wharton.

Learn more: whr.tn/46hHp9F

Sending a warm welcome to the talented group of new faculty members who've joined us on campus this school year.

These impressive scholars bring extensive expertise and fresh perspectives to the classroom as well as their respective research fields and academic departments. They include:

🔹 Patrick Adams and Thomas Sargent, Finance Department
🔹 @RoryVanLoo, Legal Studies and Business Ethics Department
🔹 Roger Masclans and Jessica (Jess) Reif, Management Department
🔹 Craig Fernandes and Alex Moehring, Operations, Information, and Decisions Department
🔹 @ItsBradRoss, Real Estate Department
🔹 Sky Cao, Statistics Department

Last year, Americans wagered more than $160 billion on sports, a 23% jump from the year before and a figure that has ballooned 30-fold since the 2018 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a federal sports betting ban and let the apps flood in.

Prof. @MichaelLouisPl1, Director of the Wharton Neuroscience Initiative (@WhartonBrain), spoke with @WhartonKnows about the biological basis of gambling amid the proliferation of online gambling sites: whr.tn/4w4Cjcy

Testosterone, in particular, acts as a biological amplifier for risk-taking, especially in males. This hormonal effect “directly influences real-world behavior, making men more likely to desire luxury goods and take ‘wild gambles,’” says Prof. Platt.

Time pressures and exhaustion can push it even further, a fact that isn’t lost on modern online gambling platforms.

“What we’re seeing,” he adds, “is these platforms acting as hyper-stimulating substitutes for healthier, real-world interactions.”

Research co-authored by Prof. Daniel Taylor (@ProfAnalytics) helped influence the United States Congress to recently pass the Holding Foreign Insiders Accountable Act (HFIA): whr.tn/3SW3kjR

When corporate insiders at U.S. companies sell their own stock, they are required to report it publicly within two business days.

This was not the case for insiders at foreign companies listed on U.S. exchanges until Prof. Taylor – faculty lead of @WhartonAIAI's Forensic Analytics Lab – and his co-authors Robert J. Jackson, Jr. and Bradford Levy (@blynch41) provided the first systematic look at what that exemption was actually enabling.

Homeowners stuck with low fixed mortgage rates aren't just frozen in place — they're propping up the housing market, according to new research.

@WhartonKnows highlights a paper co-authored by Prof. @luliu_fin, @giesbusiness's @JuliaAFonseca, and @INSEAD's Pierre Mabille, which argues that mortgage lock-in fuels housing demand due to missing downsizers — people in larger homes who would have sold and moved to something smaller: whr.tn/3SuGXlq

The result is a net increase in housing demand, enough to offset about a third of the price decline that higher rates would otherwise have produced.