CEO compensation is at historically high levels, and as a result, is receiving unprecedented levels of attention from multiple stakeholders including the academic, regulatory, business, and political communities. An important by-product of escalating CEO compensation is the disparity in pay with other employees of the firm, and particularly with other executives of the firm who work alongside the CEO. That gap in pay has been steadily rising, with CEOs now earning up to six times the compensation of their closest lieutenants (Pissaris and Golden, 2008), taking up a larger and larger slice of the firm’s resources (Bebchuk et al, 2008).
Investments in private equity have become an increasingly significant portion of institutional portfolios as investors seek diversification benefits relative to traditional stock and bond investments. Despite the increasing importance of the private equity asset class, we have only a limited understanding of the economics of private equity funds-the typical vehicle through which private equity investments are made. Particularly, three questions are mostly unresolved in the current private equity literature: (i) What is the value of a private equity fund and how does it develop overtime? (ii) How does a fund's expected return and systematic risk changeover time? (iii) How does illiquidity affect fund values and expected returns?
Drupal provides an elegantly designed and powerfully implemented mechanism for storing content as extensible, modifiable objects with various properties called nodes. Every major release of Drupal contains many enhancements and new features but the node system, at its core, has seen very little change due to its straightforward and simple design. For this very reason, a strong understanding of how Drupal’s node system works is important to understanding Drupal itself, both as a developer and an administrator. It can, however, be difficult to understand just how nodes work. In particular, administrators and developers tend to have a difficult time wrapping their heads around the ways in which Drupal modules can modify the node structure.
This session is an important step for any potential Drupal developer to quickly get up to speed with what is arguably Drupal’s most important feature - its node system. Many potential Drupal developers have used the node system for years either without knowing it, or without fully understanding it. An understanding of the basic features of Drupal’s node system, how and when nodes are modified, and being able to identify where and when that modification happens are key objectives to becoming a better Drupal developer. This session helps lay the foundation required for Drupal developers to write modules and themes that work with Drupal’s node system.
