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Measuring Wealth to Track Sustainability
The new edition of the World Bank’s Little Green Data Book, released on World Environment Day 2014, includes a new indicator called change in wealth per capita for more than 200 countries. The World Bank Group has adopted change in
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Paul Krugman: A Plea for a Return to Basics in Finance
Author of no less than twenty books, over 200 scholarly essays in peer-reviewed academic journals and more than 750 articles as a columnist, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman is not one to hide his mostly liberal opinions. As an economist, Mr
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Otaviano Canuto, World Bank Group: Macroeconomics and Stagnation – Keynesian-Schumpeterian Wars
Policy makers in the advanced economies at the core of the global financial crisis can make the claim that they prevented a new “Great Depression”. However, recovery since the outbreak of the crisis more than five years ago has been
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Robert Shiller: Making Sense of the Irrationality of Markets
The question of what motivates a trader to buy or sell shares at any particular moment is probably as old as the stock market itself. Given that trading securities often is a pursuit largely devoid of rational behaviour – though
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Inez Murray: Women in Business – Bankers Advised to Take Note
Getting banks to notice women is quite the challenge. Whereas research consistently shows that women are exceedingly good at managing money and budgets, banks often ignore the female demographic or fail to put processes in place that facilitate the financial
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Bitcoin – Chronicle of a Failure Foretold
Transaction malleability – a fraudulent, though most lucrative, way of receiving money without anyone actually sending it – is driving another nail into Bitcoin’s coffin. The digital money is by no means dead (yet), and could even perform a Phoenix
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Barry E. Silbert: Going Out on a Limb, Reinventing Capital Markets
SecondMarket was set up in 2004 and has since expanded into multibillion dollar trading platform with well over 53,000 registered participants. The exchange offers a bewildering array of securities ranging from public debt instruments to bankruptcy claims and credit derivatives.
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Blythe Masters: The Risks of Spreading the Risk
Out of a tragic oil spill came forth a new financial instrument: The credit default swap – to some a financial weapon of mass destruction; to others a nifty way to spread, and thus diminish, credit risk. The credit default
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IMF on MENAP: Call for Focus on Job Creation
The near-term economic outlook for the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (MENAP) region has weakened. Difficult political transitions and increased regional uncertainties arising from the complex civil war in Syria and the ongoing developments in Egypt weigh on
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OPIC: Low Write-Offs in Emerging Markets Investments
What organization do you represent? Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the U.S. Government’s development finance institution. In your experience or view, is the invest in Africa story hype or reality? Explain your view using worked examples investment situations, good and bad
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