Chambers, D. & Dimson, E. (2014) “The British origins of the US endowment model“, VoxEU Organisation, 20 October.   Yale University has generated annual returns of 13.9% over the last 20 years on its endowment – well in excess of the 9.2% average return on US university endowments. Keynes’ writings were a considerable influence on the investment philosophy of David Swensen, Yale’s CIO. This column traces how Keynes’ experiences managing …Read More

Joyce, P. J. (2014) “International Debt and Financial Crises“, Economonitor, 09 Οκτωβρίου.   The latest issue of the IMF’s World Economic Outlook has a chapter on global imbalances that discusses the evolution of net foreign assets (also known as the net international investment position) in debtor and creditor nations. The authors warn that increases in the foreign holdings of domestic liabilities can raise the probability of different types of financial crises, including banking, currency, …Read More

Wren-Lewis, S. (2014) “Eurozone Asymmetries“, Mainly Macro Blog, 05 October.   Suppose a large Eurozone country – let’s call it France – decided that it needs to substantially increase its minimum wage in order to reduce poverty. The increase is sufficiently large that it leads to a sustained increase in average French wage inflation, which in turn decreases the competitiveness of France relative to the rest of the Eurozone. France …Read More

Buchanan, M. (2014) “Economists Are Blind to the Limits of Growth“, Bloomberg View, 05 October.   For all their calculating nature, economists are surprisingly optimistic about humanity’s ability to have as much prosperity as it wants. Express concern about the negative impact of excessive growth on our planet’s ecosystems, and many will simply chuckle and say you don’t understand what growth means. Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, for example, chides natural …Read More

Andrews, N. (2014) “Europe’s Losing Battle For Recovery“, Evergreen Gavekal, Daily Global Update, 03 October.   The wobble in world markets continues, with stock indices across all time zones down steeply in recent sessions. Investors are not only realigning their exposure in anticipation of tighter liquidity conditions as the US Federal Reserve finally brings its asset purchases to a close later this month. After today’s European Central Bank (ECB) meeting …Read More

Tavares, E. (2014) “The Eurozone’s Unresolved Situation – Can market forces prevail in the Eurozone?“, ΘZeroHedge, 28 September.   With another round of central bank intervention coming four plus years after the start of the Eurozone debt crisis, this is a question worth considering, at a time when the Southern Eurozone members – Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal, which collectively account for over 30% of the GDP of the early …Read More

Pilkington, P. (2014)  “Is Economics a Science? Dogmatic Economics Vs. Reflective Economics“, Fixing the Economists Blog, 22 September.   The question asked in the title of this post is actually somewhat of a trick. It is a trick because it all depends upon how you define ‘science’. Often when people say that economics is a science what they are doing is defining ‘science’ in such a way that economics fits the …Read More

Moreira, A. & Savov, A. (2014) “Shadow banking and the economy“, VoxEU Organisation, 16 September.   The prevailing view of shadow banking is that it is all about regulatory arbitrage – evading capital requirements and exploiting ‘too big to fail’. This column focuses instead on the tradeoff between economic growth and financial stability. Shadow banking transforms risky, illiquid assets into securities that are – in good times, at least – …Read More