Mike Norman Economics

On Friday all the researchers in the new Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence(ESCoE) met at its home in the National Institute to catch up on the range of projects and it was terrific to hear about the progress and challenges across the entire span of the research programme. One of the projects is concerned with measuring uncertainty in economic statistics and communicating that uncertainty. The discussion sent me back to Oskar Morgenstern’s 1950 On the Accuracy of Economic...

The latest IMF Fiscal Monitor, “Tackling Inequality,” is out and it represents a direct challenge to the United States. Occasional Links & CommentaryTackle this!David F. Ruccio | Professor of Economics, University of Notre Dame

Rick Bookstaber explains how the EFT market in illiquid assets like high yield bonds creates an illusion of liquidity that is not there.Rick BookstaberCan We have an ETF Meltdown?Rick Bookstaber | Chief Risk Officer for the $110 billion pension and endowment of the University of California

History is often made by single, very powerful individuals acting on their own mission according to their own calling. Many of these individuals are seemingly immune to the reality around them and try to recreate their own reality – sometimes succeeding to advance the well-being of those around them and beyond, but, usually, they just leave the main stage after creating havoc. I could name names. But only one name is relevant for today’s blog – Wolfgang Schäuble, the former CDU German...

BackgrounderThe Vineyard of the SakerA Brief History of the “Kremlin Trolls” Scott Humor | Director of Research and Development

Zhou Xiaochuan, President of the People’s Bank of China, said that the nation will continue to implement a proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy, and continue to fight shadow banking, the real estate bubble and other risks, China Securities Journal reported.“China’s price level has remained stable, the foreign exchange market has ran smoothly and cross-border capital flows were balanced,” Zhou said. “China will further expand the financial industry, actively use new...

Last Monday the main Russian TV news channel, Vesti, ran a sensational investigative piece on the main evening news alleging that back in 2009 Russian Intelligence uncovered a plot by the CIA to remove then prime minister Kostas Karmamanlis from office, and assassinate him if necessary, for his support of Russia, in particular the South Stream gas pipeline to Europe. Regardless of whether this is true, there is a growing perception that Western covert operations are on the rise. Erdogan is...

President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser Gary Cohn said he sees a major risk evolving in clearinghouses, platforms that regulators turned to for swaps following the 2008 financial-market crisis. As “we get less transparency, we get less liquid assets in the clearinghouse, it does start to resonate to me to be a new systemic problem in the system,” Cohn, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, said at a banking conference in Washington on Sunday.... “It’s the things...

One suggestion in the comments to the ongoing “short & simple” series is to cover the balance of payments. This will be covered at some point in the introductory series, but I am still considering how best to present it in brief, simple form. With that in mind, it seemed worth attempting a regular post on the topic. The post is still intended to be elementary in nature, but is perhaps at about the introductory university level. The post is also too long to qualify as “short”, even...

[embedded content] Professor David Healy is a world-renowned psychiatrist and a leading psycho-pharmacologist who is studying the condition called Post SRRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD), an incurable permanent illness that can occur after taking SSRI’s or other modern antidepressant drugs. PSSD sufferers say that life feels pointless and that they are no longer able to feel sexual or romantic feelings anymore and can't fall in love either. Many children and adolescents who are given these...