Garrick Brown, who studies the topic for the real-estate-services company Cushman & Wakefield, anticipates that there will be three hundred by the end of next year.
While both sides of the debate can point to various studies, the topic is taking on a sharper focus as more funds embrace the riskier strategy.
That may be because data show that people are more trusting and comfortable working with people of their own sex, says Toby Stuart, a Harvard Business School professor who studies the topic.
"There are general fraud laws, but there is no law specific to hospital advertising, and there should be," said Robert Steinbuch, a professor of law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, who studies the topic.
A group of students clustered at a table in the lobby studying for an examination in religious studies — the topic for the moment was Immanuel Kant, the 18th-century German philosopher — seemed keen to mark their distance, too.
"The fact that cassava is being used for biofuel in China, rapeseed is being used in Europe, and sugar cane elsewhere is definitely creating a shift in demand curves," said Timothy D. Searchinger, a research scholar at Princeton University who studies the topic.
