Institutional Investor (August 29)
“Now that investors can get factor-based funds on the cheap, they’re pushing quants in new directions.” This presents new challenges. “One is a move away from a heavy reliance on decades of historical data and back tests to tying this in-depth research to the realities of the current economic and market environment.” Another challenge is “getting the right people” to do this. “Many quant managers historically hired people with expertise in data,” but “now it’s the background in economics and finance that’s become critical.”
Tags: Back tests, Challenges, Cheap, Data, Economic, Economics, Factor-based funds, Finance, Historical data, Investors, Managers, Market, Quants, Realities, Reliance, Research
Oilprice.com (November 18)
“The real reason that Big Oil won’t raise production is a matter of simple economics. Keeping the supply tight is just too good for the bottom line…. In fact, according to figures from Deloitte LLP, oil explorers in the United States are making more money now than at any other point in the more-than decade-long history of the nation’s shale revolution.”
Tags: Big oil, Bottom line, Decade, Deloitte, Economics, Money, Production, Shale revolution, Supply, Tight, U.S.
Financial Times (May 28)
ExxonMobil’s annual general meeting should be “a wake-up call for other executives with a bunker mentality.” Engine No 1, an obscure hedge fund, got shareholders to elect two directors by focusing on economics, not ethics, arguing that “Exxon has been so slow to recognize the need for a transition away from fossil fuel that its revenues will crumble, destroying investor capital.” Today’s activists “are not just trying to save the world; they are also trying to save their own portfolios in a world where regulators are enforcing green standards.”
Tags: Activists, AGM, Bunker mentality, Capital, Directors, Economics, Engine No 1, Ethics, ExxonMobil, Fossil fuel, Hedge-fund, Investor, Portfolios, Revenues, Shareholders, Transition, Wake-up
Forbes (March 12)
“If the economics world handed out gold medals for unintended consequences, Japan’s Yoshiro Mori would be a shoo-in.” While “Japan has had more sexist-rant scandals,” none of those “occurred on the IOC’s watch—or during the social-media age.” The $25 billion being spent on the Olympics could, oddly, “be money well spent if the sexism scandal that felled Mori gets Japan to finally get serious about gender parity,” expanding the annual economy by the $750 billion that womenomics is expected to unleash.
Tags: Economics, Gender parity, Gold medals, IOC, Japan, Mori, Olympics, Scandals, Sexist, Social media, Unintended consequences, Womenomics
Bloomberg (November 2)
China’s belt and road master plan “to project Chinese power, influence and trade across much of the world could well undermine all three.” The trillion-dollar global infrastructure scheme has gotten out of control. “A scaled-down, better-managed Belt and Road—guided more by economics and less by politics—should, as intended, promote growth and trade across the region and beyond. That would serve everybody’s interests.”
Tags: Belt and road, China, Economics, Growth, Influence, Infrastructure, Politics, Power, Trade
The Economist (March 31)
“Just six words suffice to sum up President Donald Trump’s approach to trade …make threats, strike deals, declare victory.” But this will not create a victory. “Even if conflict is averted and China gives ground… the result will be a bad one for the world, and for America. That is partly because of Mr Trump’s character. If he thinks he has won one fight, he is likelier to start another. It is also because his policy is founded on wretched economics and dangerous politics.”
Tags: China, Conflict, Dangerous, Deals, Economics, Politics, Threats, Trade, Trump, Victory, Wretched
Financial Times (May 26)
Global cities now “drive the world’s economy. The 600 biggest cities account for more than 60 per cent of global gross domestic product. The top 20 are home to one-third of all large corporations, and almost half of their combined revenues. Tokyo leads the pack — in population size, economic punch and number of corporate headquarters — ahead of New York, London and Paris.”
Tags: Cities, Corporations, Economics, Economy, GDP, London, New York, Paris, Population, Revenues, Tokyo
The Economist (October 12)
“China is dangerously short of water. While the south is a lush, lake-filled region, the north—which has half the population and most of the farmland—is more like a desert.” To try to solve the problem, China has now “built as many large dams as the rest of the world put together.” To really solve the problem, however, China will need to focus on regulatory issues, such as cracking down on polluters, and economic incentives, such as increasing water rates to encourage conservation.
Tags: China, Conservation, Dams, Desert, Economics, Farmland, Polluters, Population, Regulation, Water
The Economist (April 27, 2013)
Economics has long been defined by choices made by rational beings. These mythical creatures, however, account for many of the field’s shortcomings. “Economics should draw much more heavily on fields such as psychology, neuroscience and anthropology.” Economists should “accept that evidence from other disciplines does not just explain those bits of behaviour that do not fit the standard models. Rather, what economists consider anomalous is the norm.”
Tags: Anomalies, Anthropology, Choices, Economics, Neuroscience, Norms, Psychology, Rational, Standard models
Forbes (June 25)
“The fundamental importance of sound money has been virtually forgotten by the economics profession today, even though no country has ever achieved sustained prosperity without it. A stable currency is the foundation for the literally billions of transactions and economic arrangements that make growth possible. To simplify, imagine how difficult it would be to function if the number of minutes in an hour were constantly changing. Even cooking would be problematic.”
“The fundamental importance of sound money has been virtually forgotten by the economics profession today, even though no country has ever achieved sustained prosperity without it. A stable currency is the foundation for the literally billions of transactions and economic arrangements that make growth possible. To simplify, imagine how difficult it would be to function if the number of minutes in an hour were constantly changing. Even cooking would be problematic.”
Tags: Economics, Prosperity, Sound money, Stable currency
