Martin Wolf reports in today’s Financial Times on a recent IMF-hosted conference on Iceland’s economic recovery. The main comparison is with Ireland: both are small, open economies where government borrowing was low but where massively over-expanded banks created a gigantic … Continued
An article in the Financial Times today explains how domestic public opinion in China constrains the government’s ability to contribute to a Eurozone bailout, even if it wanted to. China spends about the same on health care as Greece did … Continued
Econometrics is a branch of applied statistics that deals with the sort of data found in economics (including finance). I believe it’s important for anybody aspiring to a senior position in finance to understand the basic elements of econometrics. These … Continued
I’ve written and taught before on the problem of obsolete and decrepit infrastructure in the US (and UK). Each trip to New York confirms, depressingly, that things are getting worse. Even walking along Fifth Avenue you notice the uneven roads, … Continued
The late Professor Wynne Godley of Cambridge University, used to teach that one must be very clear about stocks (amounts of things defined at a point of time) and flows (volumes defined over a period of time, usually a year). … Continued
I was interested to see that the Grant family of Dufftown, Banffshire, in Scotland are collaborating on an MBA with Strathclyde University. The Grants are more familiar as the owners of Glenfiddich, the world’s best selling single malt whisky. And … Continued
On this morning’s BBC Radio Four “Today” programme, a generally unimpressive interviewee from HSBC said that “you don’t solve a debt problem by borrowing more” or something to that effect. He also used that dreary cliche about kicking the can … Continued
It’s the mission of the University of Cambridge to be globally excellent in research and education. On the whole we don’t take much notice of rankings, though it is obviously nice that Cambridge is usually at or near the top … Continued
There is a growing view that if the Eurozone governments could come up with a large enough financial bazooka, it would stop the markets in their tracks and restore confidence. That view is nicely punctured by Simon Johnson (former Chief … Continued
British people have been known to play a rather childishly condescending game called “name five famous Belgians”. Part of the problem is some people thought to be French turn out to be Belgians in fact (such as TinTin creator Hergé). … Continued
In my Financial Institutions and Products course on the MFin, I give a brief introduction to national accounts and a way of thinking about macroeconomics that is relatively simple but allows us to explain a lot. It draws on the … Continued
It’s not something readily spoken of, but one reason for doing and MBA (or MFin perhaps) is to find a wife or husband. Very few people will own up to this, though I have had someone personally tell me this … Continued
President of the EU Commission, José Manuel Barroso, recently proposed a “Tobin tax” for the EU. Named after the brilliant economist James Tobin, this tax is on transactions in financial markets. Its deceptive attraction is that it is levied at … Continued
The sacking of Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin yesterday might not seem very important, just another casualty of Kremlin politics. But the Peterson Institute of International Economics offers an insightful and rather depressing account of how this means Putin is … Continued