Global Letter – Investment requirements for a 2C world
Dear Colleague, Of the many issues that will be discussed in connection with the forthcoming COP26 meeting, one that need not be is the investment cost of switching to a green economy. The requisite resources will be available: though they seem unlikely to be deployed in time.
Focus – The three ‘R’s: Recovery, reallocation, and resilience
Dear Colleague, Structural policies determine how readily resources move within an economy, and are an important determinant of economic performance. They are especially important when the structure of demand and supply are both changing fast, as they are now – due to, inter alia, the pandemic, climate change, rapid technological change, and geopolitical pressures. In […]
Economic recovery and resilience
The rate to which economic growth settles down will depend on countries’ investment response, including to going digital and green, and the quality of their structural policies.
Focus – The effects of climate change on productivity
Global warming stands to have quantitatively important effects on country productivity While most countries will apparently be affected negatively , some may see large gains Canada and Russia could see considerable increases in productivity India by contrast is set to be hit extremely hard; and the US too will incur losses The geopolitical consequences of […]
Global Letter: Rising US inflation concerns
Markets are starting to fret: it is a close call, but we are slightly more sanguine. Inflation is now back on many minds. And this matters because, as go inflation expectations, so go bond yields, and thence asset prices, exposed leveraged entities, official interest rates, and more. Inflation expectations however are difficult to forecast, not […]
Comment: Asset prices overvalued? Two views and a conclusion
Shiller’s ‘Excess cyclically adjusted price/earnings ratio’ suggests little overvaluation. But a Minsky typology suggests that prices are 5-6 steps out of 9 along the road to crisis. We see no definitive overvaluation yet: but it is Minsky that we shall be monitoring.
Global Letter – Structural reform will differentiate countries
Investors would be well advised to pay close attention to how countries’ structural policies rate
Global Letter – Mind the gap: ambition v action
For net-zero GHG emissions pledges to be credible, change needs to happen forthwith
Aggregate demand policy in a time of COVID
Large increases in government expenditure generally necessitate restraint elsewhere However at present significant resources are lying idle: no such sacrifice is needed Hence increases in government exenditure currently need not be financed by borrowing Neither need they be recorded as increases in debt owed to the public Today’s circumstances require the explicit coordination of fiscal […]
Post Card – Estonia: A country of many faces
Natural beauty and tech savviness make this small state a perfect remote-working destination I write this overlooking a quiet bay on the Western coast of Estonia. Nearest civilization is about half an hour’s drive away. The only background ‘noise’ is crickets and birds. Estonia is my home country, a tiny nation with a population of […]
