March 2020

28Mar

Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events

By Robert J Shiller In a world in which internet troll farms attempt to influence foreign elections, can we afford to ignore the power of viral stories to affect economies? In this groundbreaking book, Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times bestselling author Robert Shiller offers a new way to think about the economy and economic change. Using a rich array of historical examples and data, Shiller argues that studying popular stories that affect individual and collective economic behavior--what...

March 28, 2020
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12Mar

Australia. Billions of dollars pumped into coronavirus-hit economy in bid to stave off recession, Scott Morrison announces

The Federal Government has announced a $17.6 billion economic stimulus package in a bid to keep Australians in jobs as the economy takes a hit from the spread of coronavirus. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the package would provide an immediate stimulus to the economy amid fears Australia could slip into a recession. The package includes tax relief for small businesses, one-off cash payments for welfare recipients and money to help keep apprentices in work. More than 6 million welfare...

March 12, 2020
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04Mar

Global Economic Policymakers Scramble as Coronavirus Threatens Growth

Global policymakers moved to ease public anxiety over the coming economic hit from the coronavirus on Monday, as analysts warned of a severe slowdown in growth and a possible recession if the virus continued to spread. Finance ministers and central bankers from the world’s advanced economies said the Group of 7 would hold an emergency call on Tuesday morning to discuss economic responses to the outbreak. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund signaled they were also ready to...

March 4, 2020
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February 2020

28Feb

The Age of Sustainable Development

By Jeffrey D Sachs, Ban Ki-moon Jeffrey D. Sachs is one of the world's most perceptive and original analysts of global development. In this major new work he presents a compelling and practical framework for how global citizens can use a holistic way forward to address the seemingly intractable worldwide problems of persistent extreme poverty, environmental degradation, and political-economic injustice: sustainable development. Sachs offers readers, students, activists, environmentalists, and policy makers the tools, metrics, and practical pathways they need...

February 28, 2020
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28Feb

Millennial Generation: Information on the Economic Status of Millennial Households Compared to Previous Generations

By Charles A. Jeszeck, Michael J. Collins, Jessica Rider, Kathleen McQueeney, Layla Moughari Recent research indicates that, across three key measures, economic mobility in the United States is limited. Specifically, the Millennial generation (those born between 1982 and 2000) might not have the same opportunity as previous generations had to fare better economically than their parents. According to studies GAO reviewed, the share of people making more money than their parents at the same age (absolute mobility) has declined...

February 28, 2020
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January 2020

31Jan

Secure Retirement: Connecting Financial Theory and Human Behavior

By Jacques Lussier Investors fear return uncertainty and drawdowns associated with owning relatively risky asset classes, such as equity. The fact that greater risk is associated with greater expected return does not preclude the possibility that realized returns may be far less than a low-risk asset could provide, even with horizons as long as 5 to 10 years. Fear prompts the average investor to sometimes act against his own best interest. Therefore, the average investor’s portfolio often underperforms a...

January 31, 2020
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18Jan

Robert C. Merton and the Science of Finance

By Zvi Bodie Starting with his 1970 doctoral dissertation and continuing to today, Robert C. Merton has revolutionized the theory and practice of finance. In 1997 Merton shared a Nobel Prize in Economics “for a new method to determine the value of derivatives.” His contributions to the science of finance, however, go far beyond that. In this essay I describe Merton’s main contributions. They include the following: 1. The introduction of continuous-time stochastic models (the Ito calculus) to the theory...

January 18, 2020
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03Jan

Economics of Crisis

By Julia M. Puaschunder According to Semmler (2019), for speculations, currency and financial crises, the economic literature can be divided into three generations of models: (1) Focus on macroeconomic fundamentals (such as differences in economic growth rates, productivity and price levels, short-term interest rates as well as monetary policy actions) causing exchange rate movements. (2) Speculative forces – such as self-fulfilling expectations, which destabilize exchange rates without deterioration of fundamentals. (3) Following the theory of imperfect capital markets, self-fulfilling...

January 3, 2020
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03Jan

Impact Investing

By Brad M. Barber, Adair Morse, Ayako Yasuda We document that investors derive nonpecuniary utility from investing in dual-objective VC funds, thus sacrificing returns. Impact funds earn 4.7 percentage points (ppts) lower IRRs ex post than traditional VC funds. In random utility/willingness-to-pay (WTP) models investors accept 2.5-3.7 ppts lower IRRs ex ante for impact funds. The positive WTP result is robust to fund access rationing and investor heterogeneity in fund expected returns. Development organizations, foundations, financial institutions, public pensions,...

January 3, 2020
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December 2019

04Dec

UK. FTSE 350 pension deficit falls as election nears

The accounting deficit of defined benefit (DB) pension schemes has fallen for the UK’s 350 largest listed companies as the country prepares to go to the polls on December 12.At the end of October, the deficit stood at £41 billion (€48.1 billion). By the end of November, it had dropped to £38 billion, according to Mercer’s pension risk survey. Charles Cowling, partner at Mercer, said: “The political turmoil in the UK is likely to last beyond the general election, causing...

December 4, 2019
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