Brian Nolte

I am a Consultant with Fulcrum Inquiry, LLP, an accounting and economics consulting firm that performs economic damages analysis involving commercial litigation, financial investigations, business valuations, and forensic accounting.

Author's posts

Damage Award Aims to Curtail Future Transgressions

According to USA Today’s July 8, 2015 article, a woman was awarded a damages of $229,500 for being harassed by Time Warner Cable. The cable company solicited Araceli King with 153 robocalls despite her complaints and direct requests to cease and desist. Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the Manhattan federal court decided to triple the typical …

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Permanent link to this article: https://betweenthenumbers.net/2015/07/damage-award-aims-to-curtail-future-transgressions/

From Hoops to Riches?

Forbes recently released its annual business valuations of National Basketball Association teams, concluding that most teams became much more valuable since last year (average annual growth of roughly 24%). At $1.35 billion, the LA Lakers for example, are reportedly worth 35% more today than they were a year ago. This year’s growth among all 30 …

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Permanent link to this article: https://betweenthenumbers.net/2014/01/from-hoops-to-riches/

Is the Stock Market Usually More Generous During the Holidays?

Last year was phenomenal for investors in the stock market. The S&P 500, for example, generated total returns exceeding 26%, the highest annual return recorded since the tech bubble of the mid/late 1990s. These positive returns likely had investors in a positive mood going into the holidays, which might explain why returns during the “Holiday …

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Permanent link to this article: https://betweenthenumbers.net/2014/01/is-the-stock-market-usually-more-generous-during-the-holidays/

‘Twas the Season to Pirate New Christmas Movies

When it came to satisfying their craving for Christmas movies, many people took to the internet in 2013 to pirate their favorite seasonal films. The rate by which these movies were downloaded provides one measure of the relative popularity of various Christmas titles. According to recently reported data, which records download counts of 33 pre-selected …

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Permanent link to this article: https://betweenthenumbers.net/2014/01/tis-the-season-to-pirate-new-christmas-movies/

Artificial Intelligence Solves the Perennial Whodunit of Unsigned Judicial Opinions

An academic article published this year by the Stanford Technology Law Review demonstrates how machine learning and natural language processing techniques can provide new insights within the study of law. Machine learning, a technique developed in the field of artificial intelligence, typically uses computer algorithms to identify (i.e. “learn”) patterns in large datasets. In many …

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Permanent link to this article: https://betweenthenumbers.net/2013/11/artificial-intelligence-solves-the-perennial-whodunit-of-unsigned-judicial-opinions/

The Popularity Spike of Nobel Prize Winners in the “Dismal Science” has Dismal Staying Power

The announcement of the Nobel Prize winners every October means that at least once a year a handful of economists become relatively popular. We can observe this spike in popularity using web search data reported by Google Trends. The chart below traces each Nobel laureate’s popularity before, during, and after the Prize was announced using …

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Permanent link to this article: https://betweenthenumbers.net/2013/10/popularity-of-nobel-prizewinners-in-the-dismal-science-has-dismal-staying-power/

According to a Scrawny Sample, Fatter Applicants are Less Likely to Get into Graduate School

A recently published article on “Weight Bias in Graduate School Admissions” (gated link here) inadvertently highlights the dangers of drawing global conclusions based on inappropriate samples. Based on responses from 97 applicants to one university’s psychology department, the study asserts that graduate applicants with a higher Body Mass Index (BMI) tend to receive significantly fewer …

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Permanent link to this article: https://betweenthenumbers.net/2013/10/according-to-a-scrawny-sample-fatter-applicants-are-less-likely-to-get-into-graduate-school/

Using Fatalities to Predict Humanitarian Aid

Last Tuesday, an earthquake of magnitude 7.7 shook with such violence that it created a new island off the coast of Pakistan, as well as tragically killing at least 515 people and affecting at least 300,000 more. The international community has attempted to provide relief and humanitarian assistance. A 2013 social science paper indicates that …

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Permanent link to this article: https://betweenthenumbers.net/2013/09/using-fatalities-to-predict-humanitarian-aid/

Why Cataloguing Thousands of Essays Still Doesn’t Tell You Whether Student Writing Has Improved

According to a recent article in Canada’s largest national newspaper, students and young adults have not become worse writers since the advent of new(ish) technologies like text messaging, Twitter, and Facebook. If anything, says the article, writers have become better over time in part thanks to new opportunities to write and create with these new …

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Permanent link to this article: https://betweenthenumbers.net/2013/09/why-cataloguing-thousands-of-essays-still-doesnt-tell-you-whether-student-writing-has-improved/

The Behind the Scenes Cost of Entering the Shark Tank

ABC’s popular reality TV show, “Shark Tank,” features financing negotiations between a panel of venture capitalists (the “Sharks”) and entrepreneurs/small business owners. Like normal venture capital investing, the deals portrayed in the show generally involve an exchange of an equity stake in the company for a certain amount cash that the business requires. The show’s …

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Permanent link to this article: https://betweenthenumbers.net/2013/09/the-behind-the-scenes-cost-of-entering-the-shark-tank/