Bios of experts interviewed

Nouriel Roubini, New York University

film still Professor Roubini is an Associate Professor of Economics and International Business at the Stern School of Business, New York University, New York, NY.

His fields of research include: international macroeconomics and finance; macroeconomics and fiscal policy; political economy; growth theory; European monetary issues. He is the Director of Graduate Studies for Stern's Ph.D. program in Economics.

He is a Research Fellow for the National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA; and a Research Fellow for the Centre for Economic Policy Research, London, UK; He is a member, of the Bretton Woods Committee, Washington, DC, and the Council on Foreign Relations Roundtable on the International Economy, Washington, DC.

He is a participant and speaker in a series of ongoing meetings with G-20 Deputy Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meetings (Washington DC, July 2001; Toronto, Canada, November 2001; London, UK, July 2003).

He is a Member of the Academic Advisory Committee, Fiscal Affairs Department, for the International Monetary Fund.

He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University; Fields of specialization: international economics and macroeconomics.

Christopher Mayer, Columbia University

film still Professor Mayer is Senior Vice Dean and Paul Milstein Professor of Real Estate at Columbia Business School. He is also Research Director of the Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate, Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Professor Mayer serves on the Board of Editors of Real Estate Economics and Journal of Urban Economics and is a Fellow of the Homer Hoyt Institute. He also works as part-time research director and member of the Board of Directors of Oak Hill REIT Management, a REIT hedge fund. Dr. Mayer previously held positions at The Wharton School, the University of Michigan, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He holds a BA in Math and Economics from the University of Rochester and a PhD in Economics from MIT.

Professor Mayer's research explores a variety of topics in real estate, including real estate cycles, capital markets, housing, public and private real estate values, and debt securitization. He has also written on the market for reverse mortgages, the link between local government activities and housing values, and the economics of airline congestion. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Government of Canada, and the Real Estate Research Institute, among others. He has authored many scholarly articles on these subjects and is frequently quoted in the national media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ABC (Nightly News, 20/20, Nightline), National Public Radio, CNN, and CBS TV. Professor Mayer frequently comments on real estate for Bloomberg Television and CNBC.

Richard Sylla, New York University

film still Academic Background

PhD, Economics, 1969, Harvard University

MA, Economics, 1965, Harvard University

BA, Economics, 1962 , Harvard University

Biography

Richard Sylla is the Henry Kaufman professor of the History of Financial Institutions and Markets and a professor of economics, entrepreneurship, and innovation at New York University Stern School of Business. He teaches courses in financial history, economic and business history of the United States, and comparative enterprise systems.

Professor Sylla has been with NYU Stern since 1990. His primary areas of research include historical studies of money, banking, and finance. He is the author of several books, including The American Capital Market and A History of Interest Rates. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the Journal of Economic History, Explorations in Economic History, Small Business and American Life: A History and Business and Economic History. He is also on the editorial board of many journals that include the Financial History Review, Enterprise and Society, and Economic and Financial History Abstracts. Professor Sylla has also been the recipient of several awards and grants including National Science Foundation grants, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant and the Citibank Award for Excellence in Teaching at the Stern School. He served as President of the Economic History Association and the Business History Conference, and is currently a Trustee of the Museum of American Finance.

Prior to joining Stern, Professor Sylla taught at North Carolina State and the University of Pennsylvania among others. Professor Sylla received his bachelor of arts from Harvard University before studying at the Indian Statistical Institute at Calcutta. He then received both his master of arts and his doctorate of philosophy from Harvard University.

Guy D. Cecala

film still Guy D. Cecala is the CEO and publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance Publications, Inc., a Bethesda, MD-based company that he founded in 1984. The company produces 8 newsletters, numerous special reports and a large amount of original research and statistics related to mortgage finance.

The company's oldest and largest circulation newsletter is Inside Mortgage Finance, a weekly publication devoted to all aspects of the residential mortgage business. Other newsletters include Inside MBS & ABS, Inside B&C Lending, Inside FHA Lending, Inside Regulatory Strategies, Inside Mortgage Profitability, Inside The GSEs, and Mortgage Market Update.

One of the company's key products is the Inside Mortgage Finance MBS Database, a tracking system for all publicly offered non-agency or private-label MBS securities. This as well as quarterly surveys of the top 100 mortgage lenders in the country forms the basis for the company's widely used national rankings of key players in the primary and secondary mortgage markets. The company's mortgage market statastics are regulary used by financial regulators, including the Federal Reserve Board.

Mr. Cecala is frequently quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Economist, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and other major newspapers as well as Bloomberg and Reuters. He also has appeared on the NBC Today Show, NBC Nightly News, CNBC, ABC Evening News, CBS News, Fox Business News, PBS Nightly Business News, CNN, the BBC, CBS Radio and NPR as an expert on the U.S. mortgage market.

He is a recipient of the Newsletter and Electronic Publishers Association's "best investigative reporting" award. Mr. Cecala earned a B.A. degree in English and political science from Boston College, where he graduated magna cum laude. He also holds a M.A. degree in journalism from the University of Maryland.

Mr. Cecala also serves on the Specialized Information Publishers Assocation's board of directors as an executive officer.

Paul Muolo

film still Co-author of the book, Chain of Blame, How Wall Street Caused the Mortgage and Credit Crisis published by John Wiley & Sons. Chain made Amazon's top 100 sellers list shortly after its release in mid-July 2008. It was nominated for a Loeb and Polk Award.

Businessweek and Bloomberg named Chain one of the ten best business books of 2008.

Paul also is co-author, Inside Job, the Looting of America's Savings and Loans (McGraw-Hill), a New York Times bestseller. Inside Job won several journalism awards, including: the Investigative Reporters & Editors best book of the year, and The Adult Editors Book Award. It was nominated for a Pulitzer prize.

Paul is also executive editor of National Mortgage News, the leading independent trade publication of the residential finance industry. He is a member of the NMN staff that received the 1990 Polk Award for its coverage of the savings and loan crisis.

His weekly "What We're Hearing" web column is one of the most popular in the mortgage industry.

His freelance work has appeared in: Barron's, the New York Times, the Washington Post, EuroMoney, Playboy and other publications. He has appeared as a guest discussing mortgage, real estate, and banking issues on ABC, CNN, CNBC, NPR and other networks. He is sometimes quoted as a mortgage expert in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and other publications.

Rick Sharga, Senior Vice President, RealtyTrac Inc.

film still One of the country’s most frequently-quoted sources on foreclosure, mortgage and real estate trends, Rick has appeared on NBC Nightly News, CNN, CBS, ABC World News, CNBC, MSNBC and NPR. Rick has briefed government organizations such as the Federal Reserve and Senate Banking Committee and corporations like JPMorgan Chase, Citibank and Deutsche Bank on foreclosure trends, and done foreclosure training for leading real estate organizations such as Re/Max, Prudential and Keller Williams.

Prior to joining the RealtyTrac, Rick spent more than 20 years developing corporate and product sales and marketing strategies for corporations such as DuPont, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Toshiba, JD Edwards, Cox Communications and Honeywell. The 2006 Stevie® Award Winner for Best Marketing Executive, Rick began his career with Foote, Cone & Belding, and also held executive positions with Ketchum Communications and McGraw-Hill.