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behavioral bias

The Editor — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 01:46:49 +0000

As evidence continues to mount that established models of rational decision-making are dangerously out of date, behavioral science has embraced human irrationality in all of its deceptively predictable forms. At the forefront of the field is Duke University professor Dan Ariely, whose simple experiments into human bias have shed light on everything from the fallacy of supply and demand to the problem of procrastination.

In a recent interview with NPR, he turned his gaze toward the growing debate about rampant health care costs and their potentially behavioral origins. To contextualize the issue, he describes an experiment in which different groups are asked to order pizzas. One group is presented a menu where the default is…

oil slick = euro trick

The Editor — Sat, 15 May 2010 01:15:35 +0000

Stopping the spread of financial contagion is deceptively similar to plugging a ruptured deep-sea oil well: the cost is epic, the risk of failure is catastrophic, and expectations of success may be more hopeful than realistic. Recent efforts to address both crises share so many elements that a few tweaks to the following report on the Gulf catastrophe also freakishly describes efforts by the Eurozone to head off the risk of cascading sovereign defaults…

[European Central Bank] to [inject $1 trillion] to stop flow from [Club Med economies]
Adapted from an article on guardian.co.uk Friday 7 May 2010

The [$1 trillion facility] that remains [Europe's] best hope of containing the disaster in [Greece, Spain and

…

a dose of reality

The Editor — Wed, 05 May 2010 15:06:39 +0000

Armies of bulls and bears are camped out on either side of the great debate over the future of the global economy. Armed with the latest statistics and plenty of financial incentive, both sides are engaged in massive media campaigns to rally anyone left on the fence — principally retail investors who were either burned in the great collapse of 2008-09 or sat out the fast and furious rally over the past 14 months. As the rhetoric heats up, it becomes increasingly difficult to choose sides. A careful examination of these competing wagers provides a more holistic perspective for anyone brave enough to join the fight.

Victory lap

Having survived the worst correction in generations, major indices are now…

failure by design

The Editor — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 03:22:42 +0000

Churchill argued that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. With capitalism now falling under similar fire, modern politicians, businesspeople and academics are once again questioning both the failures of free markets and the failures of government. As pundits gather on either side of the debate — casting blame and contempt across the regulatory divide — one often overlooked explanation for all the recent chaos is the time-honored tendency for human society to self-destruct. Behavioral economists and psychologists are having a field day watching our worst decision-making biases play themselves out in political and capital markets. But few in the legislative capitals of the world have taken…

complexity and collapse

The Editor — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 00:29:56 +0000

From daily solar cycles to quarterly seasonal changes to the 130,000-year lapse between Ice Ages, our world is filled with natural ebbs and flows. Those that try to forecast the future by studying these longer sweeping patterns are often accused of being out of touch, relying on the distant past for established wisdom rather than embracing contemporary optimism that “this time is different“. In this essay in Foreign Affairs, Niall Ferguson reminds us that America is just as vulnerable to collapse as the many great civilizations that preceded it — maybe even more so given the increasing complexity of our modern global economy…

Complexity and Collapse
Empires…

one island, two worlds

The Editor — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:02:16 +0000

It isn’t surprising that so-called “ambulance economics” has gained mass policy appeal as the global economy descends into madness. The battlefield, after all, is no place for quiet research and careful study. But even the most pressing humanitarian disasters could use a little “clinical economics” to help decision-makers better chart out the way forward. Recent poverty relief efforts in Haiti, for instance, should certainly focus first on the bare essentials of sustenance, sanitation, and security. Once politicians and development professionals are able to stop the bleeding, however, the really critical work actually begins in terms of supporting the long-term prosperity of the country. In that spirit, any path forward should take into consideration the unique historical,…

volcker rules

The Editor — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:20:15 +0000

A perennial hot ticket on the lecture circuit at economic clubs and grad schools around the planet, Paul Volcker‘s influence is finally starting to resonate where it counts: at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. As his testimony in front of the Senate Banking Committee looms, the broader premise of a more responsible financial services sector pursuing sustainable, profitable growth needs to get out in clear journalistic prose from a messenger untarnished by the last 18 months of political and economic triage. This Sunday NYTimes op-ed attempts to do just that, despite the complexity of the topic. Unfortunately, it falls a little short for those either too stubborn or greedy to…

christianity and the crash

The Editor — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 16:25:54 +0000

“America’s mainstream religious denominations used to teach the faithful that they would be rewarded in the afterlife. But over the past generation, a different strain of Christian faith has proliferated—one that promises to make believers rich in the here and now. Known as the prosperity gospel, and claiming tens of millions of adherents, it fosters risk-taking and intense material optimism. It pumped air into the housing bubble. And one year into the worst downturn since the Depression, it’s still going strong.”

Did Christianity Cause the Crash?
by Hanna Rosin in The Atlantic Monthly

IMAGE CREDIT: MARK PETERSON/REDUX

LIKE THE AMBITIONS of many immigrants who attend services there, Casa del Padre’s success can be measured by upgrades…

war games

The Editor — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 03:35:35 +0000

Scores of advanced military technologies – from radio to the Internet to GPS – have successfully made the leap from combat central to electronics expo since the dawn of the industrial military complex. As game consoles grow ever more powerful and programmers continue to push the envelope of simulated reality, consumer electronics are returning the favor. At a fraction of the cost of custom hardware designed by established global defense contractors, networked PS3s and the benefit of retail economies of scale are being used for everything from high-tech imaging systems to simulating the behavior of nuclear weapons, blurring the line yet again between war…

volcker vs. greenspan

The Editor — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 03:58:37 +0000

Much like the shifting partisan politics which rules Washington in 2- to 4-year cycles, stewardship of the Federal Reserve has ebbed and flowed between neo-Keynsians and Austrians since the birth of American central banking nearly 90 years ago. Two of the Fed’s greatest leaders and keenest minds have crafted American monetary policy for most of the last three decades, and yet they couldn’t be more different.

This is their story.

Power Brokers
How Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan Reinvented the Fed

Economics has been called the “dismal science” for almost 200 years, remaining on the fringes of modern policymaking until a string of recessions and panics in the late…

why capitalism fails

The Editor — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 05:02:57 +0000

Humanity is rarely more receptive to change than during the depths of a crisis. At various times, war, famine, and financial paralysis have offered societies around the world an opportunity to revisit their fundamental character. But just as political, economic, and social systems are descending toward chaos, a current of optimism emerges – if only for a moment. The second derivative inflects, like the speed of a car just before a crash. Avoiding Armageddon — or at least pushing it back — releases a shockwave of positive sentiment. Green shoots emerge and reformists are branded as meddling fools who almost ruined a good thing. Stability returns, trust is restored, and the economy springs back to life…

after the crisis

The Editor — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:53:02 +0000

Exploring the recent economic “upheaval” through the lens of history helps in at least two ways: 1) it assures us that humanity has faced similar dangers in the past and somehow lived to tell the tale, and 2) it suggests that the same entrepreneurial instincts that led us into trouble (yet again) also hold the key to restoring stability and growth. This speech by the President of the World Bank highlights a series of events that presaged the crisis — like the “emergence” of emerging economies, the popularity of leveraged finance, and growing imbalances of trade — focusing less on the outcome and more on the decades of unbridled expansion that inspired…

reflections on a year of crisis

The Editor — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 02:56:01 +0000

A comprehensive if somewhat subjective view of the two years since the credit crisis first broke, direct from the horse’s mouth. Perhaps more interesting than any insider account of the Fed’s frantic response to the meltdown of the banking system is the degree to which the Chairman was concerned with the human impact of his macroeconomic policy-making…

Reflections on a Year of Crisis
Chairman Ben S. Bernanke

Speech at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Annual Economic Symposium, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, August 21, 2009

By the standards of recent decades, the economic environment at the time of this symposium one year ago was quite challenging. A year after the onset of the current crisis in August…

the man who crashed the world

The Editor — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 03:01:29 +0000

Another entertaining piece of journalism by Michael Lewis, this time reporting from the nucleus of the financial crisis. The premise? Buried deep within the world’s largest insurance company lay the other side of the global bet on real estate and perpetual growth. Lewis interviewed the FP traders accused of underwriting the risky default swaps that nearly destroyed the world economy while siphoning-off juicy bonuses from the comfort of their gated Connecticut suburbs. What he turned up was a far bigger fish and an interesting chorus: “while they disagreed on this and that, they all were fairly certain that if it hadn’t been for A.I.G. F.P. the subprime-mortgage machine might never have been built, and the financial crisis might never…

ten market rules to remember

The Editor — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:19:03 +0000

“Bob Farrell was a legend at Merrill Lynch & Co. for several decades. Farrell had a front-row seat to the go-go markets of the late 1960s, mid-1980s and late 1990s, the brutal bear market of 1973-74, and October 1987′s crash. He retired as chief stock market analyst at the end of 1992, but continued to occasionally publish. Rumor has it for a humongous donation to Farrell’s favorite charity, you can get on his very exclusive email list. Marketwatch gathered some of Farrell’s more famous observations, and republished them as 10 Market Rules to Remember.” – via The Big Picture