W.P. Carey hopes $50M gift benefits Hopkins and Baltimore

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), May 2, 2008 by Robbie Whelan

"While only 9 percent of MIT undergraduates are from Massachusetts, more than 42 percent of the software, biotech and electronics companies founded by MIT graduates are located in the state," the report said. The study did not examine MIT's Sloan School of Business specifically, but rather included both businesses started by MIT undergraduates and graduate students as "MIT- related."

Steve Poftak, research director at the Pioneer Institute, a Boston-based public policy think tank, attributed this sort of local idea-incubation to the MIT Enterprise Forum Inc., a networking resource for MIT-affiliated technology entrepreneurs.

"It's specifically designed to vet new ideas and to expose new ideas to a variety of people who could be customers, advisors or funders," Poftak said. "Certainly, a business school that could take advantage of that and build that would contribute to the local economy."

But Robert Inman, a professor of finance at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, said the notion that a business school could contribute significantly to the economic revitalization of a city is outdated and "silly."

Business schools themselves are not big enough employers to make much of a difference, and "idea incubators" like the Johns Hopkins Hospital don't need MBA programs to turn research innovations into patents and businesses, he said.

"If we were back in 1780, he'd have a case to make," Inman said. "Back then, the guys in Boston had no idea what was going on in Baltimore ... but Wharton students leave Philadelphia as fast as they can, because the economy here is not as attractive. ... Anything that the Baltimore economy is missing is available at the right price in Chicago, New York, San Francisco or Austin."

This, however, is largely due to Wharton's status as an "elite" business school, according to Anirban Basu, CEO of Baltimore's Sage Policy Group.

"People graduating from Wharton literally have a world of choice of where to work," he said. "At least today, Johns Hopkins students are more likely to look in the local market."

He added that the existing local business programs, at the University of Baltimore and Loyola College, have plenty of notoriety in the area, but "as soon as you leave the Baltimore metro area, it really dissipates."

Loyola's Sellinger School of Business and Management, however, is developing widespread renown, Basu said.

"The Baltimore metro area, which does not today have a program of national stature, may soon have two," he said.

Yash Gupta, the newly appointed first dean of the Carey Business School, agreed that you can't force business students to stay in Baltimore once they graduate, but said that Hopkins is designing programs to train business students to turn scientific discoveries into business innovations.

"The days have gone when companies create research and development by themselves," he said. "It's extremely expensive.

"Scientists have a different culture, and it is in their interest to have their discoveries commercialized. We will help them understand that culture. ... We'll provide incentives for them to stay in Maryland, and hence they create jobs and create economic development."