PRESS AND PUBLICATIONS
EXPLORING THE RATIONALE BEHIND GLASS-STEAGAL
Readers, who have basic knowledge of the U.S. financial system history, have certainly heard about the famous “Glass-Steagall” Act, which was one of the measures enacted in response to the financial collapse experienced during great Depression. Due to conflict of interest concerns and due to incompatibility of high risk inherent......
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF CORPORATE FIDUCIARY DUTIES: DECEPTIVE SIMPLICITY OF THE CONCEPT
Important disclaimer: the contents are for general informative purposes and do not constitute legal or other professional advice. Readers should seek legal or other professional advice in relation to any particular matters they may have. More than four centuries have passed since the first corporations ever were established and respectively......
CORPORATE CHRONICLE FROM DELAWARE
It is of no secret that Delaware is the go-to jurisdiction when it comes to registering business entities in the US. To understand the magnitude of Delaware’s popularity in this area consider two of the following facts: 1) the number of businesses registered in this state exceeds its overall population.......
APPLYING COACHING TOOLS TO PUBLIC POLICY OBJECTIVES
Industrial revolutions coupled with progression of capitalism and the competitive nature of human beings has led to a society that is more than ever obsessed with goal-setting, achievement and efficiency. No wonder a new profession known as coaching has emerged in the second half of the last century and has......
CSDR MANDATORY BUY-IN REGULATIONS: WHAT THE FALLINGS-OUT ARE ABOUT
Mandatory buy-ins are one of the most controversial rules in the EU Securities Market that are set to enter into force in the near future. Ever since their adoption, the regulators and the industry participants have been in strong disagreements about their effectiveness for ensuring the safety of securities settlement......
JUDGES, DISCRETION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH
Policymakers across the world have reached wide if not absolute consensus that courts are a key component to economic development. The OECD has long recognized the crucial role judicial systems play in determining economic performance by guaranteeing the security of property rights and the enforcement of contracts [1]. It occasionally......
COVID-19: Key measures taken by governments and central banks
Response to the coronavirus pandemic How Global Central Banks are Responding to COVID-19 When times get tough, central banks typically act as the first line of defense. However, modern economies are incredibly complex—and mishaps like the 2008 financial crisis have already pushed traditional policy tools to their limits. In response,......
Helicopter yes, or Helicopter no
Synopsis This is an unconventional monetary policy tool. It involves printing money and distributing it to the public. Imagine waking one morning to find extra cash in your account, a gift from your country’s central bank. But the concept of so-called helicopter money has been seriously debated by economists for......
U.K. Inflation Rebounds Above Bank of England Target – WSJ
Consumer prices were 2.3% higher than in October last year, the largest jump in the annual rate in two years. The U.K.’s annual rate of inflation rose above the Bank of England’s target in October, a move that was expected by policymakers, who have said they would cut their key......
ECB warns low growth and high debt risk Eurozone crisis – The Financial Times
The Eurozone risks another debt crisis if the bloc cannot boost growth, lower public debt and fix “policy uncertainty”, the European Central Bank has warned. In its annual Financial Stability Review, published on Wednesday, the ECB sounded the alarm over a potential return of “market concerns over sovereign debt sustainability”....
Why Some Tax Cuts Can Be Better Than Others – WSJ
All tax cuts aren’t created equal. As Republicans write their 2025 tax plans, they are arguing that lower taxes promote growth and, at least in part, can pay for themselves by spurring economic gains that yield higher revenue. The reality is more complicated....
Are the robots finally coming? – The Financial Times
“This is not science fiction,” declared Jensen Huang, boss of chip giant Nvidia, in June, referring to the use of AI to instruct robots to carry out real world tasks. “The next wave of AI is physical AI. AI that understands the laws of physics, AI that can work among......
MicroStrategy to Quicken Bitcoin Buying After Boosting Note Sale – Bloomberg
MicroStrategy Inc. is accelerating its pace of Bitcoin buying by increasing the amount of convertible notes it’s selling by almost 50% to fund additional purchases of the cryptocurrency. The once obscure software maker, which now calls itself a Bitcoin Treasury company, is moving rapidly to meet a goal announced last......
Spirit’s woes reveal the dismal state of America’s budget airlines – The Economist
Budget airlines are rarely loved by passengers. Cutting costs to the bone and charging for every conceivable extra makes for cheap fares but often unpleasant journeys. Few will therefore have much sympathy for the tribulations of Spirit Airlines, perhaps America’s most despised low-cost carrier (lcc), which filed for chapter 11......
Retailers are right to warn of job cuts after Reeves budget, says Andrew Bailey – The Guardian
The Bank of England governor, Andrew Bailey, has said retailers are right to warn of potential job cuts as a result of tax increases announced at last month’s budget. Bailey appeared before the cross-party Treasury select committee on Tuesday, after almost 80 retailers claimed rising costs would make “job losses......
Things Are Quiet in Consumer Credit. Too Quiet. – WSJ
Lenders are open for business. But there might not be a ton of borrowers walking through the door. That can be a formula for trouble. It should be a pretty good time to be lending money to people. Interest rates on credit cards have been at the highest levels since......
The Way We Interact With AI Chatbots Is Changing – Bloomberg
When OpenAI launched its ChatGPT chatbot in 2022, it looked as if a new generation of artificial intelligence tools was about to transform every corner of the economy and people’s lives. Fast-forward to 2024 and AI features have been added to countless services, but the impact has arguably not been......
Australia’s Central Bank Remains Jittery About Inflation Risks, Global Uncertainty – WSJ
The Reserve Bank of Australia remains jittery about the risks of higher inflation and will have little tolerance for any data that point to further delays in taming price pressures, according to the minutes of its latest policy meeting....
Shoppers Are Ditching Classic Brands They Once Loved – Bloomberg
A burst of color is washing over Kraft’s once dominant royal blue in the macaroni and cheese aisle. Among new arrivals is Goodles, a protein-packed option with eye-catching neon branding that costs more than twice as much as a box of Kraft Mac & Cheese. At a Target in Chicago,......
Eurozone Trade Surplus Rises on Jump in Exports to U.S. – WSJ
The eurozone’s trade surplus climbed in September on year, with exports to the U.S. growing as the threat of tariffs proposed by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump looms large. The eurozone trade surplus in goods with the rest of the world increased to 12.5 billion euros ($13.18 billion) in September, up......
Investors Are Betting on a Market Melt-Up – WSJ
A roaring market rally since the U.S. presidential election has driven up the price of everything from shares of technology and manufacturing giants to cryptocurrencies. Many investors are betting it has room to run. Investors have stampeded into funds tracking U.S. stocks and picked up trades that would profit if......
UK economy under Labour stalls – what that means for you and your money – The Independent
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said she is “not satisfied” with the performance of the UK’s economy after it grew by a meagre 0.1 per cent in the three months to the end of September. Economists had expected 0.2 per cent growth during the period – in itself hardly a stellar......
Spirit Airlines files for bankruptcy amid mounting financial losses – The Guardian
Spirit Airlines said on Monday that it had filed for bankruptcy protection and would attempt to reboot as it struggles to recover from the pandemic-caused decrease in travel and a failed attempt to sell the airline to JetBlue. Spirit, the biggest US budget airline, has lost more than $2.5bn since......
A.I. Chatbots Defeated Doctors at Diagnosing Illness – The New York Times
A.I. Chatbots Defeated Doctors at Diagnosing IllnessA small study found ChatGPT outdid human physicians when assessing medical case histories, even when those doctors were using a chatbot. A view from a hallway into an exam room of a health care center. In an experiment, doctors who were given ChatGPT to......
UK Inflation Hiccup May Buttress Case for BOE Caution – Bloomberg
UK inflation probably surged back above the Bank of England’s target in October, reinforcing the case for policymakers to act cautiously when cutting interest rates. The consumer price index due on Wednesday rose an annual 2.2%, according to the median of 24 forecasts in a Bloomberg survey. That’s up from......
The energy transition will be much cheaper than you think – The Economist
Most analysts overestimate energy demand and underestimate technological advances. Slower economic growth, cheaper technology and more modest targets for when the world reaches net zero could reduce the price tag even further....
Power Shifts Toward UK Workers After Wage Squeeze on Profits – Bloomberg
British workers are getting a bigger slice of the economic pie than before the pandemic, signaling a shift in the balance of power away from employers after chronic labor shortages delivered unprecedented bargaining power over wages. The share of the economy that workers take in wages has climbed to its......
Stocks Fall After Fed Comments, Strong Retail Sales Data – WSJ
Stocks fell Friday, following a solid retail-sales report that could bolster the case that the economy is strong and may not need support in the form of lower borrowing costs. Separately, a Federal Reserve official said it was too soon to say whether the central bank should cut interest rates......
The EU Needs a Strong Clean Industrial Deal
To achieve a clean, just, and competitive transition, the European Union must implement a new Clean Industrial Deal that promotes decarbonization alongside sustainable growth and industrial development. Such a strategy should create the right conditions for green investment and tackle sector-specific issues head-on....
PODCAST: At the Money: Lose the Noise
A constant stream of noise distracts investors: earnings reports, news releases, upgrades, downgrades, economic data, geopolitics. How should we best manage this firehose of distractions? Larry Swedrow, head of financial and economic research at Buckingham Strategic Wealth, speaks with Barry Ritholtz about managing through the noise....
Five Lessons from Building Green Businesses
When it comes to investing in new green businesses, CEOs tend to have clarity on the “why.” Less understood, though, is the “how.” The list of reasons why the green economy represents a massive value-creation opportunity is long and well understood.1 An estimated $3 trillion to $5 trillion in annual......
The Clock is Ticking on Sub-Saharan Africa’s Urgent Job Creation Challenge
To employ a growing population, the region needs to transform informal jobs, reduce barriers to business growth, and create conditions conductive to jobs growth in higher productivity sectors—especially in fragile and low-income countries...
How Property Taxes Can Help Low-Income Countries to Develop
The world’s governments must raise an additional $3 trillion to achieve sustainable and inclusive economic growth goals this decade. The cost in emerging markets equals 4 percent of gross domestic product—and 16 percent for low-income countries....
Why being wrong is good for you
“Mistakes are the portals of discovery,” wrote James Joyce in “Ulysses”. In 1888 Lee Kum Sheung, a young cook in a coastal province in southern China, forgot the oyster soup he was boiling on the stove until it simmered down to a thick, sticky gravy. Once he discovered how tasty......
PODCAST: The Fed Is Cutting Rates. Why Aren’t Mortgage Rates Falling?
The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage has trended higher since the Federal Reserve’s first rate cut in September – and it might keep climbing. Wall Street Journal deputy personal finance bureau chief Ben Eisen joins host J.R. Whalen to discuss what this means for prospective home buyers....
PՕDCAST: Why are non-financial misconduct reports at banks on the rise?
In The Banker exchange’s final episode for 2024, Aliya Shibli sits down with Barbara Pianese, Farah Khalique and Antonia Mannweiler to discuss the results of the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s survey on non-financial misconduct....
How should Europe build its own Silicon Valley?
Mario Draghi’s report on EU competitiveness addresses what the Japanese call “the digital deficit” in Europe: the over-dependence on foreign technology. This leaking of money, talent and independence is a strategic, existential problem. The report quickly reignited a debate on the decades-long ambition of removing unnecessary barriers and finally creating......
Stablecoins Can Defend the Dollar’s Global Status
China is devoting significant resources to creating an alternative to the dollar payments system. To counter this push, American policymakers should support private firms issuing stablecoins, which can ensure demand for US government debt and boost the greenback’s global standing and reach....
Gorillas, AI and the future of the nature finance market
Is it possible to be a non-human — falcon, yellowwood, moth, gorilla — and participate in the economy, or is the spending of money forever reserved only for humans and algo-trading machines? The COP16 UN biodiversity summit which finished last week in the Colombian city of Cali didn’t answer this......
Unlocking AI-Powered Learning
In addition to its corporate applications, artificial intelligence is helping solve broader and more complex problems, especially in education. Industry leaders and policymakers should develop a shared approach to AI-powered learning and encourage more widespread training in the technology’s fundamentals....
PODCAST: Consumer Spending, Slow Job Growth May Factor Into Fed’s Rate Decision
The Federal Reserve is expected to issue a decision on interest rates on Thursday, with one more scheduled for December. Wall Street Journal chief economics correspondent Nick Timiraos joins host J.R. Whalen to discuss how an uneven economy, and the presidential election, could impact the Fed’s plan in the months......
Concerned about your data use? Here is the carbon footprint of an average day of emails, WhatsApps and more
Nearly 20 years ago, the British mathematician Clive Humby coined a snappy phrase that has turned into a platitude: “data is the new oil”. He wasn’t wrong. We have an insatiable appetite for data, we can’t stop generating it, and, just like oil, it’s turning out to be bad news......
As Inflation Recedes, Global Economy Needs Policy Triple Pivot
Growth is projected to hold steady, but amid weakening prospects and rising threats, the world needs a shift in policy gears. Let’s start with the good news: it looks like the global battle against inflation has largely been won, even if price pressures persist in some countries. ...
At The Money: Building A Bond Ladder
How can investors seeking income plan for a future where bond yields are unknown? One solution is building a ladder of bonds that mature in different years to both lock in higher rates now (in case yields drop), and reinvest later (if rates rise). For more on the subject, Barry......
Reform or Irrelevance for the IMF?
Eight decades after the International Monetary Fund was established, the world can – and must – pursue a grand bargain to reform its governance structure and deal with emerging challenges. As matters stand, the Fund is increasingly ill-positioned to perform the tasks that are expected of it....
Ride-sharing robo-pods are the future of cities
Imagine a world that operates by public transport in which your ride arrives the moment you need it. You travel directly to your destination — no stops, no transfers — at a fraction of the cost and environmental impact of both individual cars and high-speed trains....
Support for Economic Reforms Hinges on Communication, Engagement, and Trust
The global economy is stuck in a low-growth gear, largely because of aging populations, weak business investment, and structural frictions that prevent capital and labor from flowing to where it can be most productive....
PODCAST: Why is financial inclusion still an issue in the UK?
Join Barbara Pianese as she speaks to Kate Pender, chief executive of Fair4All Finance, about recent developments regarding financial inclusion in the UK....
AT1: Investors’ Risky Bets that Keep the Banks Running (by Hayk Khekoyan)
When you hear the word CoCo you probably think of a leather bag with the famous Chanel logo on it, or the 2017 critically acclaimed and commercially successful animated movie of the same name. What you probably do not think about is a complex financial instrument, created with the purpose......
Is Artificial Intelligence Going to Replace Us All? (by Hayk Khekoyan)
Nowadays it seems borderline impossible to spend even a few hours without coming across the subject of “Artificial Intelligence”. There is just way too much talk, hype, arguments, doomsday prophecies or bold optimistic statements on how this or that technological advancement or tool, or AI in general is going to......
Did the 2022 World Cup Really Cost More than All the Previous Ones Combined? (by Hayk Khekoyan)
As the World Cup final is played in Lusail, a city that did not even exist a few years ago, Qatar 2022 will go down in the history books for many reasons, not all of them exactly football‑related. Nothing in the world exists as a separate entity in a vacuum:......
The Growing Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Business (by Hayk Khekoyan)
These days it is borderline impossible to spend a day in the business world without hearing the phrase “emotional intelligence”, its abbreviation “EI” or the closely related term “EQ” (emotional quotient, similar to intelligence quotient colloquially known as IQ). While the concept of emotional intelligence is becoming increasingly prevalent throughout......
The Streaming Wars: Part 2 (by Hayk Khekoyan)
Last year I wrote about the so-called “Streaming Wars”. This term is used to describe the process of the rising number of streaming video on demand (VOD) services from all sorts of corporations trying to position themselves in an ever-growing and yet such a tight market. The world is a......
Working Less or Working Smarter and Better? (by Hayk Khekoyan)
Work less, earn more. That is the plan for most people. Barring the rare cases of people actually loving their work, for most of us a job is simply a means to survive. If you haven’t won the genetic lottery to be born into outrageous wealth, just staying alive requires......
To the Moon or to the Ground? The Jury is Still Out on Bitcoin (by Hayk Khekoyan)
Bitcoin is back. Back to inexplicably losing more than half of its value in six months, back to being one of the biggest controversies in the world, but definitely not back to its all-time highs of more than $60,000 achieved twice during 2021. “When you find yourself in a hole,......
How to Increase Savings in Armenia (by Alexandra Ouzounian from The Pingry School, New Jersey)
Financial literacy is broadly defined as an individual’s financial knowledge and ability to use financial tools to execute his or her financial goals. The people of Armenia demonstrate a level of financial literacy (Figure 1) and gross savings rate (Figure 2) that is lower than the average financial literacy of......
Personal data protection: EU perspective (by Diana Javadyan)
Nowadays, more than ever, data protection issues are actual and crucial in terms of both data protection standard setting and data protection standard implementation. Recent Fintech developments, e-communities, artificial intelligence application and other technological advancements throughout the world bring up the need of robust data protection framework and protected data......
The Streaming Wars that will Shape the Future of Entertainment (by Hayk Khekoyan)
When the CEOs of Netflix and Blockbuster met in the distant year 2000 to discuss a merger between the two, Netflix was a 3-year-old company valuing itself at a measly $50 mln compared to Blockbuster’s market capitalization of around $5 bln (Sloan, 2020). Perhaps, having taken note of the phrase......
Why You Should Consider Learning Cybersecurity (by Hayk Khekoyan)
3.12 million. This is the estimated number of cybersecurity specialists needed globally as cyberattacks around the world keep growing in both frequency and magnitude (Duffy, 2021). The last few months alone have seen some of the biggest security breaches in history, more on which later. The most important development in the......
Will Energy Ever Be the Same Again? (by Hayk Khekoyan)
As recently as the year 2013, the largest publicly traded corporation in the world was an oil company. Exxon Mobil had a market capitalization well north of $400 bln at the time, which was quite the feat considering there were no trillion-dollar companies in the world yet. Fast forward......
A Possible Future of Money (by Hayk Khekoyan)
If you have not spent the last few years in a cave or on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the words cryptocurrency or digital currency should sound familiar. I will not pretend to know or try to explain all the details of the technology behind Bitcoin,......
The Simple, Yet Quite Complex Global Issue (by Hayk Khekoyan)
For almost a week in the end of March one of the most important marine routes of the world was blocked by a giant vessel, approximately matching in size with New York’s famous Empire State Building. It took almost another week after the vessel was removed for the traffic jam......
The Consequences of the Mass Investment Platforms (by Hayk Khekoyan)
By January 11 not as many people had heard about the American company Gamestop as they have today. As of January 11 Gamestop cost around 1.5 billion USD and was a network of computer games and electronics’ stores situated in several states of the USA as well as in a......
Why We Need Governments (by Hayk Khekoyan)
The man regarded as the father of economics devoted a great deal of time and a big chunk of his work talking about how free markets produce the best outcomes for everyone involved. Adam Smith, in his book “The Wealth of Nations”, told us about the invisible hand that guides......