Robin Panovka: REITs face a new reality

The heady rush of taking real estate investment trusts from public to private has evaporated in today's credit-market crunch. And so, it's time to face a new reality, says New York attorney Robin Panovka, a renowned expert on REIT mergers and acquisitions.

Steven Davidson: Don't blame CDOs for the subprime crisis

The collapse of the subprime residential real estate market last summer has Wall Street investment banks and international financial titans reeling.

Subprime discussion part one: What is the subprime market and why do we need it?

Knowledge@W. P. Carey recently taped a discussion about the subprime market between Jeffrey Coles, chairman of the finance department at the W. P. Carey School of Business, Anthony Sanders, professor of real estate and finance at the school and Steven Davidson, vice president,

Gordon DuGan: How subprime mortgage woes spread through the financial system

A first-time homebuyer with limited earning power and a sketchy credit history would seem to have little in common with a blue chip corporation. But thanks to some creative investment vehicles they've now been tied together.

Financial detectives: The rising demand for forensic accountants

Like ripples from a pebble pitched into a pond, the federal law passed to combat white-collar crime has resulted in booming demand for the specialists who can comb through financial records and follow a trail of evidence.

Group purchasing organizations encounter troubled waters in the 'safe harbor'

A controversial regulation creates a "safe harbor" from antitrust laws for certain aspects of the relationship between suppliers and group purchasing organizations (GPOs) in the healthcare industry.

The dollar: Down but not out

The dollar has been in sharp decline in recent months — the greenback is now worth less than the Canadian dollar, and against the euro, it has lost 60 percent of its value since 2001. A doomsday scenario has the U.S.

To pay or not to pay: The world of office suites opens up

The ubiquitous Microsoft Office suite claims an impressive 95 percent market share. Yet since 2000, a free suite of software that includes spreadsheet and word processing programs similar to Excel and Word has evolved.

Determining a merger's value

New research by assistant finance professor Claudia Custodio has found that the diversification discount can be grossly over-estimated as a result of flaws in the way it has traditionally been calculated.

CEO pay is clearly out of whack: Here's how to fix it

In 1980, the average American CEO made about 42 times more than the average American worker. In 2011, the CEO made about 380 times more. CEO pay continued to rise significantly every year in the last half of the 2000s, even as corporate profits were falling.