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In a Financial Times opinion column, chief economics commentator Martin Wolf draws on "Financing the AI Buildout," a paper by Columbia Business School professor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, to ask whether markets are ready for an AI bust. The paper estimates that U.S. spending on the AI buildout will average 3.6% of GDP from 2025 to 2032. That's more than the 2.2% spent on railways from 1870 to 1890 and the 1.1% spent on highways from 1956 to 1973.Van Nieuwerburgh finds that capital spending by Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Oracle rose from $97 billion in 2020 to $416 billion in 2025, and is forecast to reach $801 billion in 2026. At that point, spending would exceed the companies' operating cash flow by $93 billion. Data center financing is shifting toward developers, REITs, infrastructure funds, and private equity, and much of it runs through bank loans and private credit with little public disclosure. As the paper puts it, "the sector's financing structure can transmit and amplify those risks." Wolf argues that the longer the boom and its financial engineering continue, the bigger the economic impact is likely to be when it ends.

In a New York Times story, Columbia Business School's Aamir Rehman, weighs in on why private equity deals to scale up beloved small restaurants are drawing pushback from loyal customers. When the partners behind Los Tacos No. 1, the acclaimed New York taqueria, accepted a multimillion-dollar private equity deal to expand, fans flooded social media with complaints that the business had sold out and would soon decline in quality. 

Findings from a paper co-authored by CJEB's Director, Professor David Weinstein, titled “The Anatomy of Tariff Pass-Through into Consumer Prices” were referenced in the Wall Street Journal article titled “The Biggest Inflation Contributor: Tariffs”Read the full article here.The core findings from the research paper, “The Anatomy of Tariff Pass-Through into Consumer Prices,” are also summarized by the paper's co-authors in a research blog post titled “How Fast Do Tariffs Pass Through into Consumer Prices?” which was published on the Liberty Street Economics blog. The platform features insight and analysis from New York Fed economists working at the intersection of research and policy. Read the research paper here. Read the blog post here. The Biggest Inflation Contributor: Tariffs (The Wall Street Journal, 10/20/2026) 

Learn 10 research-backed ways to get more from your MBA or master’s degree.

According to National Jeweler, Graff USA has named Katy Chen, who earned her MBA at Columbia Business School, as executive vice president. She joined on August 31 and reports directly to President and CEO Marc Hruschka, overseeing retail sales and operations at Graff's 11 US locations in New York, California, Florida, Chicago, Houston, and Las Vegas. Chen most recently spent a year as senior vice president of client engagement at Christian Dior Couture. Before that, she was head of client engagement in North America at Cartier for two years and spent 12 years at Tiffany & Co., where she became senior director for global client relations for high jewelry. Graff USA pointed to her "proven track record of building high-performing teams and driving sustainable growth" and said she'll help strengthen the brand's US retail presence and client experience. She also holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Bryn Mawr College.

In Forbes, Columbia Business School Professor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh looks at the surge in high-yield debt behind the AI data center buildout. So far in 2026, data center developers and AI cloud providers known as "neoclouds" have raised $80 billion in data center bonds. Of that, $37 billion, nearly half, is rated junk, more than four times the 2025 total. A Forbes analysis of FactSet data found these bonds finance 16 data center projects leased to or backed by companies such as Amazon, Meta, Nvidia, Oracle, and Jane Street, along with fast-growing neoclouds like CoreWeave and Fluidstack. Investors are now pulling back. Average yields on these bonds climbed to nearly 10% in a single week, and about $4 billion of CoreWeave's corporate debt is trading below 80 cents on the dollar. "Bond investors don't benefit from the upside. They only worry about the downside," Van Nieuwerburgh says. "The yields are beginning to reflect an increased probability of a downside scenario." Equity markets are showing the same strain, as heavily indebted developers Firmus, SB Energy, and AirTrunk have postponed or canceled their IPOs.

In a column for CNBC Make It, former Columbia Business School executive education faculty member Dorie Clark explains how to handle a coworker who seems to believe their own false claims. She opens with Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who is back in the news with a new documentary. Clark has consulted for companies including Google and Microsoft, and she warns that ignoring a pattern of broken promises can leave you "holding the bag when things unravel."

In a MarketWatch report on the International Monetary Fund's latest AI outlook, Columbia Business School Professor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh's research helps show how big the AI buildout is. In a paper published by the Brookings Institution, Van Nieuwerburgh estimates that investment in AI infrastructure and specialized chips will total $10.3 trillion between 2025 and 2032. That's about 3.63% of US gross domestic product each year. The article says AI spending is likely to exceed what was spent building the railroads, the electricity grid, and the internet. Economists at ING estimate AI will account for a third of US growth this year. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva says AI could raise global growth by up to half a percentage point a year over the next decade.

In an exclusive Business Insider report, Columbia Business School executive in residence and adjunct professor Len Sherman analyzes how much Uber pays its drivers in 16 US cities. The data comes from GigU, a third-party app that helps drivers evaluate trips, and covers about 1.8 million trip offers made between March 2025 and March 2026, including offers drivers declined. Sherman found big regional differences. In Orlando, Uber offered a median of 72 cents a mile, or $19.30 per active hour. In Los Angeles, the median was $2.15 a mile, or $46 per active hour. After accounting for driving expenses, typical trip counts, and trip distances, he estimates drivers in six cities earned less than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

In a Quartz report on Asia's debt-fueled AI infrastructure boom, Columbia Business School Professor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh's research helps show how much borrowing is behind data center growth. In work for the Brookings Institution, Van Nieuwerburgh estimates that about $1.4 trillion of debt has gone into financing data centers, and that banks hold roughly half of it. The article covers Singapore-based Princeton Digital Group's push for a three-year syndicated loan of up to $1.2 billion, citing Bloomberg. The money would fund a 198.8-megawatt data center campus in Johor, Malaysia, and refinance existing debt. HSBC, Maybank, OCBC, Standard Chartered, and UOB are leading the deal. Earlier this year the company raised about $856 million for data centers in Indonesia, and it has set a $5 billion debt target for regional expansion.

POLITICO's Decoded newsletter looks at how Wall Street leaders are weighing the financial risks of the AI boom, and it cites Columbia Business School Professor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh's research on the scale of the spending. In work published through the Brookings Institution, Van Nieuwerburgh estimates the cost of the AI buildout could exceed $10.3 trillion through 2032. Relative to the size of the economy, that's more than the US invested during its canal, railroad, electrification, highway, and telecommunications booms.