October 2019

09Oct

US. White House Focuses on China Stock Limits in Retirement Fund

The Trump administration is moving ahead with discussions around possible restrictions on portfolio flows into China, with a particular focus on investments made by U.S. government retirement funds, people familiar with the internal deliberations said. Read also US. GE is freezing its pension plan for 20,000 US workers The efforts are advancing even after American officials pushed back strongly against a Bloomberg News report late last month that a range of such limits was under review. Trump officials last...

October 9, 2019
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04Oct

Why the Future of Brazil’s Economy Rides on Pensions

Latin America’s largest economy, Brazil, is closer than ever to overhauling its costly pension system. That’s been the focus of the first sustained legislative drive by President Jair Bolsonaro, his economic team and allies. Efforts to muster support for a major reform failed under previous administrations. Now, Brazil’s Senate is set to approve changes that could boost the nation’s public finances and open the door to a virtuous cycle of expansion. 1. Why is pension reform so important? Brazil’s pension...

October 4, 2019
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01Oct

Trying Wall Street’s Patience, Brazil Postpones Pension

Brazil is trying Wall Street’s patience. Last Wednesday, the Senate was scheduled to vote on a much touted, and much needed, pension reform bill. Then it was postponed to Thursday. It didn’t happen on Friday. It is now supposed to go up for a vote on Tuesday, Senate leaders said. The market for Brazil equities has been in a holding pattern all week waiting for this vote; a vote that is supposed to be a lopsided win for president Jair Bolsonaro...

October 1, 2019
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September 2019

20Sep

Response of the IMF and the World Bank: to the Great Recession and the Euro Sovereign Crisis in a Globalising World

By Tankiso. A Thibane The book focuses on two international institutions, namely; the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank that were established more than seventy years ago. It examines their role during two main post-war global financial crises in a globalising world. This is because, in the currently globalised world, there are risks of a crisis spreading to other countries, particularly if there is no rapid intervention from international institutions. A brief discussion on the history of...

September 20, 2019
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17Sep

ECB Has $51 Billion Fund Questioning Future of Inflation Hedging

The European Central Bank’s latest round of easing sent a signal to institutional investors that their inflation hedges may be growing more pointless by the day. In the northernmost corner of the euro zone, a $51 billion pension fund says ECB President Mario Draghi isn’t giving his industry much hope that things will improve. “So far, the less you’ve hedged, the better off you’ve been,” Reima Rytsola, the chief investment officer of Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Co., said in...

September 17, 2019
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13Sep

The Price of Inequality

Senior Fellow Joseph E Stiglitz America currently has the most inequality, and the least equality of opportunity, among the advanced countries. While market forces play a role in this stark picture, politics has shaped those market forces. In this best-selling book, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz exposes the efforts of well-heeled interests to compound their wealth in ways that have stifled true, dynamic capitalism. Along the way he examines the effect of inequality on our economy, our...

September 13, 2019
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06Sep

Institutional Responses to Aging Populations and Economic Growth: A Panel Data Approach

By Patrick M. Emerson, Shawn D. Knabb, Anca-Ioana Sirbu Will an aging population lower economic growth? Economists are generally concerned that the increase in life expectancy could lower economic growth, however, theory does not make a prediction. As life expectancy increases, so should household savings, which results in more physical capital per worker. This will stimulate economic growth. However, as the retired population share increases, this may reduce spending on children as more resources are transferred to the elderly....

September 6, 2019
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04Sep

Giant Norway pension fund weighs Brazil divestment over Amazon deforestation

KLP, Norway’s largest pension fund, with over US$80 billion in assets, is saying it may divest from transnational commodities traders operating in Brazil such as Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Bunge and Cargill, if they work with producers who contribute to deforestation. KLP has $50 million in shares and loans with the firms. KLP is also reaching out to other investors to lobby them to use their financial influence to curb Amazon deforestation via supply chains. On August 28, Nordea,...

September 4, 2019
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August 2019
30Aug

Why is Inequality Higher Among the Old? Evidence from China

By Katja Hanewald, Ruo Jia, Zining Liu This paper studies income inequality in old age and its development over the life cycle. We develop a theoretical framework and a new empirical method to show that income is more unequally distributed in old age than in working age. We combine the regression-based inequality decomposition method and the three-step mediating effect test to analyze the transmission of income inequality from initial socioeconomic differences to income inequality in old age. Our study...

August 30, 2019
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16Aug

Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty

By Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics and Director Poverty Action Lab Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo Two practical visionaries upend the most common assumptions about how economics works in this gripping and disruptive portrait of how poor people actually live. Why do the poor borrow to save? Why do they miss out on free life-saving immunizations, but pay for unnecessary drugs? In Poor Economics, Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, two award-winning MIT professors, answer these questions based...

August 16, 2019
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