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Behind blue eyes: Simon Taylor's blog. Behind blue eyes: Simon Taylor's blog.

Author Archives: Simon Taylor

What is a corporation?
3 Sep 2024

What is a corporation?

by Simon Taylor | posted in: Book recommendation, Course material, Economics | 1

Ahead of teaching corporate finance each year, I like to try to explain what a corporation actually is. * A corporation is a particular way of organising economic activities. What is called a corporation in the US is called a … Continued

Corporate finance, Corporate governance
Climate change and finance
27 Aug 2024

Climate change and finance

by Simon Taylor | posted in: Course material, Energy | 0

Climate change is a systematic risk * In the standard theory of portfolio diversification, we divide risk into systematic and idiosyncratic or diversifiable risk. We argue that idiosyncratic risks can be diversified away, so there is no market reward for … Continued

Climate change, risk management
Multiple causation in history: the case of the Global Financial Crisis
18 Aug 2024

Multiple causation in history: the case of the Global Financial Crisis

by Simon Taylor | posted in: Course material, MFin | 0

Each year on the Master of Finance core course on Financial Institutions and Markets, I do a session on the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-09. One thing I emphasise is the many different causes of this highly influential event, which … Continued

China, GFC, history, regulation, USA
Nuclear is only a small part of the answer to climate change
14 Aug 2023

Nuclear is only a small part of the answer to climate change

by Simon Taylor | posted in: China, Economics, Energy, International affairs | 0

Nuclear has a role to play in providing reliable carbon-free electricity, but in the US and Europe it is likely to be too expensive to have more than a small role. * As I have written two books about nuclear … Continued

China, construction, energy, nuclear power, UK, US
Why markets ignore sovereign debt ratings for the US
2 Aug 2023

Why markets ignore sovereign debt ratings for the US

by Simon Taylor | posted in: Economics, Finance sector, Key finance concepts | 0

Debt rating agencies have no particular expertise or special information on sovereign debt, especially for developed economies, so their views don’t matter * News that Fitch downgraded the US sovereign debt rating from AAA (the highest rating) to AA+ (the … Continued

credit, debt, risk, sovereigns, USA
You can’t insure against climate change
13 Jul 2023

You can’t insure against climate change

by Simon Taylor | posted in: China, Energy, International affairs | 0

Climate change involves systemic risk, so it’s not possible to insure against, or diversify away the risk. * Over the years I have sometimes heard investors talk of insuring their portfolios against climate change risks. A group of students once … Continued

Climate change, Insurance, Portfolio diversification, risk management
What is geopolitics?
13 Apr 2023

What is geopolitics?

by Simon Taylor | posted in: International affairs | 2

Geopolitics has two related but distinct meanings * International politics, the relationship between states, is complicated. What are a nation’s interests? Determined by who? How do national politics affect foreign policy? Can technology transcend geography? How do culture and “national … Continued

China, Geography, Geopolitics, history, USA
Avoiding another Cold War
30 Mar 2023

Avoiding another Cold War

by Simon Taylor | posted in: International affairs | 1

A child’s enquiry about the Cold War brings back memories and raises concerns for the future * The other day a friend’s child asked me, what was the Cold War? Children ask about history all the time, but perhaps in … Continued

China, cold war, history, nuclear war, USA, USSR
The paradox of Chinese Communist ideology
26 Mar 2023

The paradox of Chinese Communist ideology

by Simon Taylor | posted in: China, International affairs | 0

A country with several thousand years of distinctive cultural history is governed through European ideology * It is often said that China is one of the world’s oldest civilisations, tracing a history back to around 2,200BCE. Of course there were … Continued

China, history
The beginning of the end of the oil age
7 Apr 2021

The beginning of the end of the oil age

by Simon Taylor | posted in: Economics, Energy, International affairs | 0

Some people who know me don’t believe it, but as a child I wasn’t interested in international politics. But, like most people in Britain in the 1970s, I knew the name of the Saudi oil minister, because he was a … Continued

energy, Geopolitics, global, oil, OPEC, USA
The case for bitcoin
15 Mar 2021

The case for bitcoin

by Simon Taylor | posted in: Course material, Financial products | 2

People are often surprised when they ask economists, what is money, and the reply is, well, anything that fulfills the functions of money is money: money is as money does. The classic definition of money is anything that is: i) … Continued

bitcoin, China, cryptoassets, gold, Insurance
Ten years after Fukushima
8 Mar 2021

Ten years after Fukushima

by Simon Taylor | posted in: Energy | 0

What happened? At 14.46 on 11 March 2011, the largest earthquake ever to hit Japan started in the Pacific Ocean about 72km (45 miles) from the Japanese coast. Occurring in fairly shallow waters, the earthquake caused a tsunami with a … Continued

energy, Japan, nuclear power, risk
The importance of infrastructure
1 Mar 2021

The importance of infrastructure

by Simon Taylor | posted in: Energy | 0

People paid to worry about bad stuff happening concluded long ago that one way to destroy the USA as a functioning state would be to explode a high altitude nuclear weapon above the country; the resulting electromagnetic pulse (EMP) would … Continued

Electricity, energy, infrastructure, risk management
Has the US “lost” China a second time?
22 Feb 2021

Has the US “lost” China a second time?

by Simon Taylor | posted in: China, International affairs | 3

The shift of US attitudes on China owes as much to American disappointments as it does to changes in China’s behaviour * After the revolution that brought the Chinese Communist Party to power in 1949, a shocked US foreign policy … Continued

China, Foreign policy, Geopolitics, International relations
Should oil companies invest in renewable electricity?
14 Feb 2021

Should oil companies invest in renewable electricity?

by Simon Taylor | posted in: Economics, Energy | 4

Oil and gas companies have few skills that are transferable to electricity generation and risk wasting a lot of their shareholders’ money. * “Peak oil” used to refer to supply but in recent years has come to mean the year … Continued

Climate change, energy, oil, renewables, strategy

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About

Simon is a member of the finance faculty group at Cambridge Judge Business School. From 2008-18 he was the first Director of the University of Cambridge Master of Finance (MFin) degree, and he is now Director of the University's Global Executive MBA. An economist and former equities analyst at JPMorgan and Citigroup, he teaches on financial markets and institutions, infrastructure finance and the world financial system. He is a Fellow in Economics at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge. His book on nuclear power in the UK was published in March 2016.

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