Category «Financial System»

Towers Watson Report – Extreme Risks 2013

News release: Focus on the extreme risks ‘that can kill you’ Towers Watson warns institutional investors: “Towers Watson’s extreme risks ranking has a new top three: Food/water/energy crisis, Stagnation and Global temperature change – while Sovereign default and Insurance crisis have both fallen five places and Depression loses the top spot for the first time since …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Climate Change, Cybercrime, Economy, Energy, Environmental Law, Financial System, Government Documents

Mastering the building blocks of strategy

Increase your likelihood of developing effective strategies through an approach that’s thorough, action-oriented, and comfortable with debate and ambiguity. by Chris Bradley, Angus Dawson, and Antoine Montard | October 2013 “Left unchecked, market forces continually conspire to deplete profits. Powerful business strategies can counteract those tendencies, but good strategy is difficult to formulate.Indeed, the latest McKinsey research …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Knowledge Management

Countercyclical Policy and the Speed of Recovery After Recessions

Countercyclical Policy and the Speed of Recovery After Recessions – Working Paper 2013-032A by Neville Francis, Laura E. Jackson, and Michael T. Owyang, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. October 22, 2013 “The nature of the business cycle appears to have changed. Prior to the 1990s, recoveries from recessions were quick and steep; after the past three recessions, however, …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents

IMF – Doing Business 2014

Doing Business 2014 – Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises, October 29, 2013.  Main Findings: “Ukraine, Rwanda, the Russian Federation, the Philippines, Kosovo, Djibouti, Côte d’Ivoire, Burundi, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Guatemala are among the economies improving the most in 2012/13 in areas tracked by Doing Business. Worldwide, 114 economies implemented 238 regulatory reforms in 2012/13 making it easier to do business as measured …

Subjects: E-Commerce, Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research

Commentary – Why the Financial Crisis Took Economists By Surprise

Never Saw It Coming – by Alan Greenspan:  “The economics of animal spirits, broadly speaking, covers a wide range of human actions and overlaps with much of the relatively new discipline of behavioral economics. The study aims to incorporate a more realistic version of behavior than the model of the wholly rational Homo economicus used for so long. …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System

Commentary – America’s Incredible Shrinking Information Sector

Vision Statement: America’s Incredible Shrinking Information Sector – Interactive by Alvin Chang; Analysis by Hank Robison “The information industry – which the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics defines as processors, producers, and distributors of data, informational, and cultural products—shed more jobs in the first decade of the millennium than any other sector except manufacturing. Down more than …

Subjects: Economy, Education, Financial System, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management

November 1 SNAP Cuts Will Affect Millions of Children, Seniors, and People With Disabilities

Report By Dottie Rosenbaum and Brynne Keith-Jenning – October 24, 2013 “The 2009 Recovery Act’s temporary boost in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits ends on November 1, 2013, which will mean a benefit cut for each of the nearly 48 million SNAP recipients — 87 percent of whom live in households with children, seniors, …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Legislation

Research Brief – Social Security’s Real Retirement Age Is 70

Center for Retirement Research, Boston College – IB#13-15 by Alicia H. Munnell “The brief’s key findings are: Due to increases in Social Security’s Delayed Retirement Credit, the effective retirement age is now 70, with monthly benefits reduced for earlier claiming. Benefit levels at 70 appear appropriate given that rising deductions for Medicare and greater benefit taxation have …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents

New Study Finds Cash Alone Effective Way to Fight Poverty

“Researchers today released the results of a long-awaited study, which may reveal a promising new direction in alleviating poverty, one much simpler than many popular aid methods. While traditional charities and aid programs often have infrastructures designed to deliver specific types of aid to the poor, such as food or livestock, the researchers studied a …

Subjects: Economy, Education, Financial System, Government Documents

The Global Gender Gap Report 2013

Press Release, October 25, 2013 – Increased Political Participation Helps Narrow Global Gender Gap in 2013 The Global Gender Gap Report 2013 “finds 86 out of 133 countries improved their global gender gap between 2012 and 2013, with the area of political participation seeing the greatest progress Iceland has the narrowest gender gap in the …

Subjects: E-Government, Economy, Education, Financial System, Government Documents

The Fight Over Financial Literacy

Bloomberg.com reports on an issue vital to all Americans in an ongoing series of articles, videos, slideshows: “Many Americans, burdened by a lack of retirement savings and more than one trillion dollars in student loans, are desperate to know how to make smarter financial decisions. Educators, financial institutions and even some savvy parents have come …

Subjects: Economy, Education, Financial System