News and Analysis: 01-15 July 2016 | EmergingFrontierMarkets.com

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Posted on Fri, 15 July 2016:

Larry Summers: A remarkable financial moment, Harvard (blog), 06 July 16:
The US 10- and 30-year interest rates today reached all-time low levels. Record low 10-year interest rate were also registered in Germany, France, Switzerland and Australia. Such rates would have seemed inconceivable a decade ago and very unlikely even a couple of years ago, writes Pres Obama's fmr Natl Econ Council dir

Calestous Juma: Innovation and its discontents, Project Syndicate, 01 July 16 [courtesy Harvard]:
Technological innovation is often extolled for its power to overcome major development challenges. Yet innovations frequently face high barriers to implementation, with govts sometimes banning new technologies outright, writes author of Innovation and Its Enemies: Why people resist new technologies (2016)

Coffers: Your investment tool is failing you, Northwestern Univ, 06 June 16:
The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) is the most commonly used tool by investors for predicting stock returns. In 1990, the economist William Sharpe won a Nobel Prize for helping to create it. But the curious thing about the CAPM is that, for all its influence, it does not actually work

Posted on Wed, 13 July 2016:

The UK is one of the most generous nations. Will Brexit put a damper on its global giving?, Natl Public Radio (blog), 01 July 16:
Back in 1970, the UN set a goal for donor countries to aspire to: give 0.7 percent of gross national income for development aid. The UK is one of the few countries that have met the 0.7 percent figure. The US, by contrast, is at 0.17 percent

Globalization - What the West can learn from Asia, Brookings Inst (blog), by I Nabi, 30 June 16:
How did Asia achieve a shared prosperity from globalization with consistent domestic political support, while the rich countries have struggled and are suffering the political blowback?, asks UK Intl Growth Ctr country dir for Pakistan

Boardroom/C-suite: Can you work without silos?, Yale Univ, by G Tett, 09 May 16:
"If you find yourself in a hole," Will Rogers is said to have advised, "stop digging." Now what if you're stuck in an organizational silo? Overcoming silos in businesses has been an objective at least since Jack Welch advocated for the "boundaryless organization", says Financial Times US managing ed.

Posted on Mon, 11 July 2016:

Gregory Mankiw: One economic sickness, five diagnoses, NY Times, 16 June 16 [PDF, courtesy Harvard]:
Economists, like physicians, sometimes confront a patient with an obvious problem but no obvious diagnosis. That is precisely the situation we face right now. Let's start with the problem. There is no simple way to gauge an economy's health, writes Pres GW Bush's Council Econ Advisers chair / Harvard prof

Ten emerging markets of the future, Business Insider, 06 July 16:
A new report from a Fitch Group firm, BMI Research, has identified the "10 emerging markets of the future" -- the nations that are set to become new drivers of econ growth over the next 10 years: Bangladesh, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines and Vietnam

Technology transforming industries critical for growth and jobs in ASEAN, Intl Labor Org, 07 July 16:
A new report warns that while mass scale job displacement is not imminent, the technology to replace mainly lower-skilled jobs in ASEAN will increasingly be adopted as its cost declines and innovations become accessible to even small-sized enterprises

Posted on Fri, 08 July 2016:

Aid, trade and friendship - Will Brexit hurt the world's most needy?, LA Times, by A Simmons, 01 July 16:
Would aid to the world's developing nations be impacted? Would there be an effect on trade deals and benefits? To what extent might Britain's closest friends in emerging markets suddenly get short shrift? Or, might there actually be new opportunities for emerging economies?

Paul De Grauwe: The EU should take the side of the losers of globalization, Author's blog, 01 July 16 [via Social Europe]:
The single market and the trade agreements have widely opened up the European gates to globalization. There is nothing wrong with that. Except that there is a complete failure to organize the necessary compensation towards the losers of globalization, writes fmr member of Belgium's parliament / LSE prof

Strong global economic engagement is essential to maintaining US prosperity and leadership abroad, Rand Corp, 21 June 16:
The US stands to gain more from both strengthening global institutions and rules, such as those governing trade, direct investment, and development assistance as well as engaging with the world's rising powers than from pulling back, a new study argues

Posted on Wed, 06 July 2016:

110 Nobel laureates sign letter on Greenpeace 'Golden Rice' position, 29 June 16:
We urge Greenpeace and its supporters to recognize the findings of authoritative scientific bodies and regulatory agencies about crops and foods improved through biotechnology, and abandon their campaign against "GMOs" in general and Golden Rice in particular, write Nobel Laureates, incl 8 in econ

A response from Greenpeace, by W Pelegrina, 30 June 16:
The only guaranteed solution to fix malnutrition is a diverse healthy diet. Providing people with real food based on ecological agriculture not only addresses malnutrition, but is also a scaleable solution to adapt to climate change, writes org's campaigner in Southeast Asia

Smarter approaches to combating crime and violent extremism, World Bank, 19 May 16:
What is the common thread that connects elephant poachers, Somali pirates, and the radical Islamists of Daesh? They can all be understood through the lens of forensic economics, a discipline that applies the tools of econ to criminal activities to find smarter approaches to combating them

Posted on Mon, 04 July 2016:

How the G20 could help fight the Trumps of the world in immigration, CIGI (blog), by K Carmichael, 17 June 16:
The migration debate is unique in that facts have little influence on attitudes. Virtually every economist agrees that immigration is good for econ growth. Yet the narrative remains that all immigrants do is steal jobs, writes Ctr senior fellow / fmr Globe & Mail journalist

Economists adding up at Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Investor's Biz Daily, 08 Apr 16:
Established giants and newer tech firms alike are enlisting economists to help with many crucial tasks. Stanford's Susan Athey knows of nearly 100 economists employed by tech firms (The world's top economists want to work for Amazon, Facebook, Businessweek)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, amateur auction theorist, Millions, by Fisman and Sullivan, 31 May 16:
The way book authors get paid is straightforward: publishers keep careful track of how many books they sell and pay authors a royalty of each sale. But as Goethe observed, "the publisher always knows his profit whereas the author is in the dark," write Boston U prof; and Harvard Bus Rev Press editorial dir

Posted on Fri, 01 July 2016:

Policy remix needed to tackle pent-up risks, Bank for International Settlements, 26 June 16:
"We need policies that we will not once again regret when the future becomes today," the BIS says in its new annual report, which identifies a risky combination of factors that leaves the global economy highly exposed (The BIS looks through the financial cycle, INET [blog])

Ricardo Hausmann: Football, Brexit, and Us, Project Syndicate, 1 July 16 [via WEForum (blog)]:
Of the 24 teams that qualified for this year's UEFA European Cup football (soccer) tournament, only one came from Germany. Three came from the UK: England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. That seems rather odd, writes Harvard Ctr Intl Devt dir

2016 Cost of living rankings, Mercer, 22 June 16:
Asia dominates the top 5 of the rankings of the cost-of-living for expat execs, with Hong Kong in the No.1 spot this year, pushing Luanda (Angola) to 2nd. Zurich is in 3rd place, with Singapore in 4th and Tokyo 5th (Interactive infographics)

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