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  • pierre 5.11pm on November 28, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Demography   

    Demographics 

    Five Population Trends to Watch
    Foreign Policy
    Sept. 2007

    1. Europe and Asia Turn Gray

    Where it’s occurring: Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore

    What’s happening: Couples are having fewer babies than they used to. In Italy, for example, the total fertility rate is 1.3 children per woman, and in Japan it is just 1.2. As people have fewer babies and as baby boomers hit their rocking chairs, senior citizens will make up a larger fraction of the population, while working-age adults will make up a smaller fraction of the population. By 2050, people 60 and older will comprise 39 percent of Italy’s population and 44 percent of Japan’s. The result: There will be fewer workers to pay each elderly person’s healthcare and social security costs. Unless working adults are taxed more or benefits for seniors are cut, governments’ budgets will go bust.

    What’s being done about it: Governments are trying to get people to have more babies. In Singapore, matchmaking services are provided by the government’s Social Development Unit, while in Japan local governments are sponsoring speed dating. One Russian province offers entices couples with time off from work to conceive babies on its annual “Conception Day.” Baby bonuses are also popular. Germany now gives parents two thirds of their previous year’s income when they stay at home during a baby’s first year. Spain’s prime minister recently proposed giving families 2,500 euros ($3,500) for each baby produced. And, of course, European countries are well known for giving mothers various levels of paid maternity leave.

    2. The Global South Explodes

    Where it’s occurring: Developing countries in Africa and Asia

    What’s happening: Poor and uneducated women tend to have more children. Many such women live in developing countries, and over the next few decades that’s where most of the world’s population growth will occur. Just 23 years from now, in 2030, Ethiopia will overtake Russia in population, according to United Nations projections, and Uganda will overtake Germany in 2040. More…

     

  • pierre 2.49pm on November 26, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    Book Review: The Black Swan 

    Time for this week’s book review. The Black Swan, by Nassim Nichola Taleb (NNT). It is a book I’d been eager to read for a long time now. The title first intrigued me. The very day HEC’s library bought it, it was mine! Now my roommate Feli is next on the list.

    So here it goes: It is a book about knowledge, our way of thinking (rational, top to bottom) and how it is unfit for the modern world. We used to live in Mediocristan (a world of few and insignificant exceptions) as Taleb coins it. We now live in Extremistan, where a single instance can influence the whole society (Google, 9/11).

    NNT’s main point is that humans greatly overestimate their reasoning and predicting skills. There is a lot of room for the Unknown, what he calls Black Swans (before discovering the first black swan in Australia, people thought for decades that all swans were white – Hence, the Black Swan.)

    An example of human limitation is the narrative fallacy or how we rewrite History every time we look back. He quotes Marcus Tullius Cicero and the story of the Drowned Worshipers. A painting showed people praying on a shipwreck and avoiding drowning. It was said that they survived because they prayed. Cicero points out that the painter omitted the drowned worshipers.

    The author argues that it is impossible to accurately predict the future due to the law of iterated expectations. Major changes are caused by technology, for instance the telephone or the Internet. And you would need to incorporate future discoveries in your predictions. That is you need to know elements form the future itself. Which is tricky.

    Now I have hard a time knowing whether or not I liked this book. Hum… on the one hand it is challenging and it does a terrific job at asking questions and pointing out flaws. On the other hand it falls short when it comes to providing solutions. I also found the book to lack coherence. I’d say read it if you’re looking for a new perception and some reconsideration of you thinking and analytical system. I’d say don’t read it if you have exams coming up!

    Read the first chapter for free (NY Times), or buy the book here!

    See also a list of cognitive biases.

    A few quotes

    One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic
    Joseph Staline

    My being here is a consequential low-probability occurrence, and I tend to forget it.
    Nassim Nicholas Taleb

    Last week: The Paradox of Choice <<<           >>> Next week: Super Crunchers

     

  • pierre 11.14pm on November 23, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    A journey to the center of your mind 

     In a wide-ranging talk, Vilayanur Ramachandran explores how brain damage can reveal the connection between the internal structures of the brain and the corresponding functions of the mind. He talks about phantom limb pain, synesthesia (when people hear color or smell sounds), and the Capgras delusion, when brain-damaged people believe their closest friends and family have been replaced with imposters.

     

  • pierre 11.10am on November 23, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: HEC Montreal   

    Psychologie et Organisation 

    Cliquez sur l’image pour en savoir plus sur notre travail de Psychologie et Organisation …

     

  • pierre 12.31pm on November 19, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Higher Ed   

    US Universities as Top Investors 

    Here’s an article from the NY Times about Yale’s financial performance over the past 10 years. It’s endowment grew by 28% last year…

    By GERALDINE FABRIKANT, Published: September 27, 2007, NY Times

    The Yale Endowment, which has led the academic world in investment performance over the last decade, posted a 28 percent return yesterday for the fiscal year ended June 30, bringing its total value to $22.5 billion.

    The endowment, which has been run by David F. Swensen since 1988, outperformed all its competitors, according to preliminary data widely circulated among endowment offices.

    The Yale Endowment has had a 17.8 percent average annual return over the last decade, beating Harvard, its nearest rival in size, by 2.8 percentage points. During that 10-year period, Princeton came closest to Yale, with a 16.2 percent return.

    The second-best-performing school last year was Amherst College, which generated a 27.8 percent return, to raise its value to $1.7 billion. Generally the larger university endowments do better than the smaller ones, according to data compiled by the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

    Among the top 10 performing endowments last year, Notre Dame, Duke, Michigan, Virginia and Northwestern all had returns over 25 percent. Notre Dame came in third behind Yale and Amherst at 25.9 percent. Harvard, which has been in the news lately because of the sudden departure of its investment chief, Mohamed A. El-Erian, posted a 23 percent return, bringing its endowment to $34.9 billion.

    Many indexes also posted very strong results in the fiscal year. The Wilshire 5000 was up 19.6 percent, and the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index rose 18.36 percent, while the Morgan Stanley Emerging Markets index rose 41.76 percent.

    Nevertheless, Mr. Swensen, who was an early leader in creating a strategy of investments diversified beyond stocks and bonds, outperformed rivals. He argued in his book “Pioneering Portfolio Management” that depending solely on stocks and bonds would not necessarily provide enough protection to a fund. His approach has led Yale’s endowment into hedge funds, private equity funds and hard assets like timber and oil and gas, and made his performance one that is closely watched by Wall Street. More….

     

  • pierre 8.55am on November 19, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    Manif contre la grêve ?! 

    Pourquoi refait-on les élections dans la rue?

    photo AFP

     

  • pierre 11.27am on November 17, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Finance   

    Passionate Finance 

     

  • pierre 10.21am on November 17, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Geoeconomie, Geofinance   

    Géoéconomie? Géofinance? 

    HÉLÈNE REY
    Des fonds (trop) souverains
    Les Échos.

    “Plus de 320 milliards de dollars ont ainsi été investis par Oslo sur les marchés internationaux. La plupart des pays exportateurs de pétrole font de même. Abu Dhabi possède le plus important fonds souverain, d’un montant d’environ 625 milliards de dollars. Le fonds souverain russe disposerait de 128 milliards, le fonds koweïtien de 213 milliards de dollars. Les puissances économiques émergentes comme la Chine, qui s’enrichissent en exportant et accumulent ainsi de vastes réserves de devises, ont également créé leurs fonds souverains, suivant l’exemple des pays pétroliers. C’est ainsi que China Investment Corp a récemment vu le jour, doté de 200 milliards de dollars, une somme qui pourrait croître rapidement, car le montant total des réserves chinoises est astronomique (1.400 milliards de dollars). La Corée du Sud et Singapour investissent une partie de leurs réserves – traditionnellement placées dans des actifs liquides à bas rendements comme des bons du Trésor américain – dans des fonds souverains. Au total, on estime que les fonds souverains détiennent aujourd’hui 2.200 milliards de dollars, une somme à peu près égale au PIB français et déjà plus importante que la capitalisation globale des « hedge funds ». Avec la flambée des prix du pétrole et des matières premières, la croissance des fonds souverains sera impressionnante : 14 des 20 plus gros fonds ont le pétrole ou les matières premières comme principale source de revenu. Les banques d’investissement prévoient que la valeur totale des fonds souverains quadruplera ou même sextuplera d’ici à 2015. Cela pose-t-il problème ? …” More…

    Source: Lesechos.fr

    Mourad Oubrich – Le Matin(Maroc)

    “La prolifération des accords de libre-échange fut pour beaucoup d’observateurs une réelle surprise. La guerre économique est bien réelle.

    C’est là notamment la thèse que défend Edward Luttwak qui, au tout début des années quatre-vingt-dix, annonçait l’avènement d’un nouvel ordre international où l’arme économique remplaçait l’arme militaire comme instrument au service des Etats dans leur volonté de puissance et d’affirmation sur la scène internationale.

    Les objectifs de la géoéconomique ne relèvent plus, pour Edward Luttwak, de la conquête de territoires ou de l’influence diplomatique ; il s’agit de maximiser l’emploi hautement qualifié dans les industries de pointe et les services à haute valeur ajoutée.

    Ce glissement de la géopolitique vers la géoéconomique est bien expliqué dans les travaux de Carl Von Clausewitz et d’Edward Luttwak concernant la nouvelle forme de guerre, pour Carl Von Clausewitz une guerre armée entre super puissance n’est pas envisageable de faite que la structure de l’économie mondiale est basée sur l’interdépendance des échanges commerciaux.

    Si jamais une telle chose se produisait, on assisterait très certainement selon Carl Von Clausewitz à l’effondrement successif par effet boucle de neige de l’économie de nombreux pays qui ont axé leur politique économique sur l’internationalisation des échanges commerciaux.

    Le recours aux expressions militaires pour décrire les attitudes géoéconomiques est en effet caractéristique du discours d’Edward Luttwak : «Les capitaux investis ou drainés par l’Etat sont l’équivalent de la puissance de feu ; les subventions au développement des produits correspondent aux progrès de l’armement ; la pénétration des marchés avec l’aide de l’Etat remplace les bases et les garnisons militaires déployées à l’étranger, ainsi que l’influence diplomatique».

    Ces diverses activités «investir, chercher, développer et trouver un marché» sont également le lot quotidien des entreprises privées qui les exercent pour des motifs purement commerciaux. Mais quand l’Etat intervient, lorsqu’il encourage, assiste ou dirige ces mêmes activités, ce n’est plus de l’économie pur sucre, mais de la géoéconomie… “

     

  • pierre 3.51pm on November 15, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    Out of the box, or without the box? Just be sure to use an Apple box. 

     

  • pierre 12.49pm on November 15, 2007 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Marketing   

    Economics everywhere 

    from Greg Mankiw’s Blog by Greg Mankiw

     

     

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