Posts Tagged ‘Fund Strategy

This year’s Champions League final provides an uncanny example of football imitating life. The arguments about the success of the German model, with two Bundesliga teams reaching the final, bear a striking resemblance to the economic debate. That is even leaving aside clichés about German “efficiency” in both arenas. Success for Bayern Munich and Borussia [...]

This is my Perspective column from this week’s Fund Strategy magazine. It has become widely accepted that the wealthy, and particularly the super-rich, have changed fundamentally in the recent past. Not so long ago the rich mainly inherited their wealth but the current crop, so the argument goes, usually made their own fortunes. The editors [...]

It is hard to imagine a more embarrassing public humiliation. Two Harvard economics professors, one a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, made a basic spreadsheet error in a hugely influential paper. Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff’s 2010 work, Growth in a Time of Debt, helped provide the economic underpinning for the case [...]

This is my Perspective column from this week’s Fund Strategy magazine. Whatever happened to the march of the makers? Back in March 2011, Chancellor George Osborne proclaimed in a parliamentary speech that an industrial renaissance was central to the Government’s plan for growth: “We want the words: ‘Made in Britain’; ‘Created in Britain’; ‘Designed in [...]

Margaret Thatcher’s admirers and her critics are both overestimating the extent to which the former prime minister transformed the British economy and financial markets. Although she made some important changes an awful lot remained intact. Let’s get the genuine shifts out the way first. Perhaps the most dramatic was winning acceptance for the idea that [...]

This is my Perspective column from this week’s Fund Strategy magazine. When is a euro not a euro? The question might sound philosophical but the Cyprus crisis has posed it in brutally practical terms. Recall that the eurozone is meant to be a currency bloc. Therefore, at least in theory, a euro in, say, Germany [...]

This is my Perspective column from this week’s Fund Strategy magazine. Many experts have long argued that the developed countries, particularly America, are switching towards a “knowledge economy” and away from industrial production. The trouble is, by some measures at least, this trend seems to have at least partially reversed recently. It is true that [...]

This week’s Perspective column looks at the Cyprus deal. Although the article was submitted last Monday, with a lot happening in the interim, in some respects (such as the principle of taxing bank depositors) things have moved full circle since then. Depositors with less than €100,000 in savings will no longer be subject to the [...]

This is my Perspective column from this week’s Fund Strategy magazine. Readers of this column may wonder why I often use Paul Krugman as a foil for my arguments. The reason is straightforward. His views are a lucid and high profile expression of the economic mainstream. In that sense quoting the New York Times columnist, [...]

Let’s take a hypothetical example to illustrate the hopeless character of much financial punditry on recent elections. A recently formed populist party has done well in the general election in a large European country. It has won a large number of votes although not enough to form a majority government. A financial expert appears on [...]