The objective of the Salomon Center at New York University Stern School of Business is to focus high quality research attention in the area of financial economics. Among its activities, the Center conducts new research across a wide array of financial topics; conducts high profile conferences for academics, practitioners and regulators; and distributes material to the community highlighting important research developments in specific areas covered by the Center.
Founded in 1972 by a grant from the partners of Salomon Brothers, the Center funds its activities through endowment income, annual or grant contributions by corporate and institutional Associates, and income from conferences. The current director of the Center is Matthew Richardson, having been preceded by Ingo Walter (1990-2003), Arnold Sametz (1975-1990) and Kalman Cohen (1972-1975).
The Center specializes in the study of financial institutions, including commercial banks, investment banks, managed funds and insurance companies. Recently, the Center was instrumental in the organization of the NYU Stern School book project, Restoring Financial Stability: How to Repair a Failed System. The Center has been involved in putting together various conferences and its popular Chats with Financiers program related to the financial crisis of 2007-2009.
Currently, the Center also helps incubate several research initiatives, each directed by a Stern School of Business professor
Two earlier initiatives, still affiliated with the Center, are now on their own--Corporate Governance directed by David Yermack, in the NYU Pollack Center for Law and Business and The Volatility Institute directed by Robert F. Engle (2003 Nobel Laureate in Economics).
The Salomon Center's partnership with a number of important financial institutions, called Corporate Associates, has led to the formation of a Database Center. The Database Center allows academics to address questions using a variety of proprietary data sources. In addition, the Center processes particular data of interest to practitioners. For example, the Center maintains a monthly time-series of indices on defaulted bond and bank loan prices since the 1980s. With the recent development of the database facility, this type of offering is an expanding part of the Salomon Center. Using this data, the Center's various research programs are becoming online portals for news, academic research, and data processing in their particular areas of interest.