Tag Archives: Economics

Bringing two worlds together: The investor-policy maker interface in collaborative sovereign engagement initiatives

By | September 28, 2023

The importance of public policy has increased for investors since 2015, when governments committed to shifting trillions of dollars to be consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement and to increase investments in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Further, investors have accepted the influence of ESG factors on delivering financial returns, recognizing the need… Read More »

The Keys to Sovereign Development Fund Success 

By | September 19, 2023

Demand for infrastructure investment continues to ramp up amid growing commitments to a low-carbon future and rapid economic growth in developing countries. The nature of this “scaling up” challenge requires capital that governments cannot provide alone, necessitating the utilization of private capital. Institutional investors collectively possess the financial resources ($16 trillion in “direct” investment capacity)… Read More »

Is Sustainable Finance a Dangerous Placebo? 

By | August 30, 2023

In recent years, the financial industry has been increasingly pressured to actively contribute to addressing critical societal challenges, such as climate change. Now, many investors expect their money to be managed in a way that promotes positive environmental and social change. Given these expectations, there is a growing interest in understanding the real impact of… Read More »

The Consequences of Rising Healthcare Costs and the Role of Private Equity 

By | August 29, 2023

In the U.S., the rise in healthcare costs has been the subject of intense public and regulatory scrutiny. Average health insurance premiums have risen steadily over the past few years, outpacing inflation. However, the negative consequences of this economic rise are not fully understood. In particular, a significant portion of the rise in healthcare costs… Read More »

The Contagion Risk of Cryptocurrency Markets 

By | May 18, 2023

Since the inception of Bitcoin in 2008, crypto assets, have long been perceived as one of the riskiest assets.1 Unlike traditional assets, many cryptocurrencies are decentralized, limited in supply, and difficult to value, leading to speculation, high divergence of opinion, and extreme price volatility. These features, combined with the rapid growth of crypto markets during… Read More »

ETF Rebalancing, Hedge Fund Trades, and Capital Markets

By | May 16, 2023

Over the past decade, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have transformed the investment industry with total net assets skyrocketing to $6.73 trillion by February 2023. As a passive investment product, ETFs track a particular index and aim to replicate its performance. To maintain low tracking error, ETFs rebalance portfolios following underlying index reconstitutions. With the rise in… Read More »

Long-Run IPO Performance and the Role of Venture Capital 

By | May 1, 2023

IPOs only offer a partial exit to Venture Capitalists (VCs). When a VC-backed company goes public, the VC typically refrains from selling all shares at the IPO. Due to the high levels of information asymmetry at the IPO, selling a large fraction of the holdings sends a negative signal concerning the company’s valuation. Iliev and… Read More »

Do R&D-intensive firms publish in academic journals to communicate with investors? 

By | April 27, 2023

Investors may find firms engaged in research and development (R&D) attractive investment opportunities due to their high growth potential. At the same time, R&D is a risky, uncertain process, and the progress of a firm’s R&D activities is difficult for outsiders to assess, resulting in substantial information asymmetry between firms and investors. Firms in the… Read More »

Towards A Capital Efficient Digital Currency  

By | April 12, 2023

In this blog post, we analyse tokenized deposits in terms of financial motivation, regulation, technological implementation, and interaction with retail and wholesale central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), with particular attention to the European perspective. We conclude that the tokenization of deposits is a crucial enabler for the success of future CBDCs and needs to enter… Read More »

How Economic Fitness Can Improve Industrial and Sovereign Development Funds Policies 

By | April 11, 2023

The idea that industrial policy is back in vogue has become something of a cliché in recent years. Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize winning economist, and Justin Lin, a former Chief Economist of the World Bank, were onto the trend early, arguing in 2015, “today, the relevance and pertinence of industrial policies are acknowledged by… Read More »