Degrees

Ph.D., New York University, 1980
M.Phil., New York University, 1978
M.B.A., New York University, 1975
M.S.E., Princeton University, 1970
BSME, Tulane University, 1966

Short Bio

Dr. Stuart Wood is an Austrian-School economist, an economic and financial forecaster, a business valuation expert, and a specialist in the theory of entrepreneurship and how entrepreneurial activities co-ordinate market processes in both product and asset markets, especially in the Stock and Bond Markets, where expectations rule. He is a student of Israel Kirzner and Ludwig Lachmann, and his dissertation Entrepreneurship and the Co-Ordination of Expectations in the Stock Market won an award as “The Outstanding Dissertation in Economics in the United States” in 1980.

He developed and published a decision analysis tool to compare and evaluate the relative effectiveness of competing multi-capability systems. In addition to refining the theory of entrepreneurship in producers’ and consumers product markets, developing the theory of expectations in stock markets, and developing a theory of entrepreneurial processes in stock and other asset markets, he works also in the area of the entrepreneurial design and management of business firms to increase profitability, often called “the theory of the firm,” in particular by creating an entrepreneurial environment for employees to develop their alert creativity for previously-unforeseen profit opportunities.

Dr. Wood has developed and teaches the “Entrepreneurial Method of Financial Decisions” based on his Austrian-School knowledge; this method focuses students’ minds on the forecasted future profitability of alternative present courses of action and forecasts specific quantitative effects of each proposed course in the future, from which an evaluation can be made of the present value of each proposed course of action and the most value-creating action chosen. He believes this methodology taught to undergraduates is unique in the United States. He conceives his course in Analysis of Financial Statements as the discovery of what the firm will do in the future. He has won the Loyola MBA Top Gun teaching award and was named one of the Best Teachers in America in 1998.

He has published in the areas of system effectiveness evaluation and decision analysis, rocket combustion processes, business cycle theory, distributions of security price changes, entrepreneurship in the stock market, the economic fundamentals of marketing, capital formation in the United States, valuation of closely-held firms, interactions of corporate financing and investment decisions, and the financial effects of Hurricane Katrina. His understanding of the development and withering of entrepreneurial alertness in individuals leads him to a unique appreciation of the causes of the current economic distress. His study of and experience in statistical and decision analysis, coupled with his Engineering education and experience provide him with a unique quantitative skill in business forecasting and economic valuation, and he consults in the areas of quantifying individual income loss due to an event, business income loss and business valuation, with particular expertise in “unestablished businesses”, as well as many other economic issues. He has been active in evaluating many business losses caused by Hurricane Katrina due to damage to premises, damage to activities, or loss of assets.

Dr. Wood is an avid amateur astronomer and music lover, observing and photographing through his own telescopes and giving from time to time lectures on Arp Galaxies and Quasars, Cometary Impacts Carrying Life to Earth, Stellar and Galactic Ageing (“Evolution”); and considers himself an expert on Mahler and Bruckner and a lover of Beethoven. He tries to follow Jesus.