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With roots dating back to the 1800s, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. is the oldest and one of the largest private investment banks in the United States. Its influence on the early American economy helped navigate the country through financial turbulence by fueling the cotton trade and the steamship and railroad industries.

Investors in the Italian Renaissance could have predicted today’s low interest rates, according to Paul Schmelzing, Ph.D., who dove deeply into American and European economic archives to research real interest rate dynamics.

Today’s interest rates can be as low as 3%, but in the 1970s, Americans were paying 17% just to borrow money. In 1982, Henry Kaufman, then managing director of Salomon Brothers Inc., issued a memorandum predicting that interest rates would plummet, and bond prices would soar. What happened next was the biggest economic uptick since World War II.

In a Gabelli School Virtual Centennial Speaker Series event sponsored by the Gabelli Center for Global Security Analysis, the CFA Society New York, and the Museum of American Finance, Cohen shared highlights of his storied career and his passion for financial history. He was joined by CNBC Senior Markets Correspondent Bob Pisani.

As the COVID-19 vaccine roll out reaches more people every day, business offices across the country are plotting the best strategies to reopen, but that doesn’t come without challenges. Global accounting firm EY looks forward to reconnecting its 80,000 partners across America as 12,000 of its newest employees have never set foot in an EY office.

Majority women-owned firms manage just one percent of global investable assets, and women comprise just 10% of portfolio managers in the investment management field. Disrupting these numbers was the center of discussion in a Gabelli School Virtual Centennial Speaker Series event sponsored by the Gabelli Center for Global Security Analysis.

Early in U.S. history, federal funding of public infrastructure was deemed unconstitutional. Railroads, canals, and bridges were few and far between until President Abraham Lincoln had a vision that would not only bolster the economy by widening travel, but also allow every American citizen the chance to “climb the economic ladder” post-emancipation.