IMF-Illuminating Dark Corners of the Global Economy
September 3, 2019--This issue of Finance & Development reminds me of a Sufi parable. A woman sees a mystic searching for something outside his door. "“What have you lost?" she asks. "My key," he responds. So they both kneel down to look for it. "Where exactly did you drop it?" she asks after a few minutes. "In my house," he replies. "Then why are you looking here?" "Because there is more light."
The lesson: we all search for answers where it is easiest to look.
That is why we decided to shine a spotlight on the dark web of secret transactions that enable tax evasion and avoidance, money laundering, illicit financial flows, and corruption.
Consider these estimates: bribes to the tune of $1.5-$2 trillion change hands every year. Tax evasion costs governments more than $3 trillion a year, and countless more is lost through other illicit activities. This is money that could go for health care, education, and infrastructure for millions worldwide.
Source: IMF
IMF Working Paper-Optimal Macroprudential Policy and Asset Price Bubbles
August 30, 2019--Summary:
An asset bubble relaxes collateral constraints and increases borrowing by credit-constrained agents. At the same time, as the bubble deflates when constraints start binding, it amplifies downturns.
We show analytically and quantitatively that the macroprudential policy should optimally respond to building asset price bubbles non-monotonically depending on the underlying level of indebtedness. If the level of debt is moderate, policy should accommodate the bubble to reduce the incidence of a binding collateral constraint. If debt is elevated, policy should lean against the bubble more aggressively to mitigate the pecuniary externalities from a deflating bubble when constraints bind.
view the
Source: IMF
UBS and HSBC Robots Push Into Bond Sales Frontier
UBS Group AG and HSBC Holdings Plc are bringing robots into bond sales, a corner of banking still considered by many to be off limits to the onward march of automation.
Source: Bloomberg
IMF-Global Financial Stability
Ten years on, it remains difficult to forecast financial instability. However, progress is afoot to improve the understanding of important links between the financial sector and the economy. We now understand better how financial vulnerabilities can amplify negative shocks and hurt output and employment.
Source: IMF
Artificial intelligence promises to enhance ESG investing
Source: FT.com
Worsening Water Quality Reducing Economic Growth by a Third in Some Countries: World Bank
Quality Unknown: The Invisible Water Crisis shows, with new data and methods, how a combination of bacteria, sewage, chemicals, and plastics can suck oxygen from water supplies and transform water into poison for people and ecosystems. To shed light on the issue, the World Bank assembled the world's largest database on water quality gathered from monitoring stations, remote sensing technology, and machine learning.
Source: World Bank
$4.2 Trillion Can Be Saved by Investing in More Resilient Infrastructure, New World Bank Report Finds
The report, Lifelines: The Resilient Infrastructure Opportunity, lays out a framework for understanding infrastructure resilience, that is the ability of infrastructure systems to function and meet users' needs during and after a natural hazard. It examines four essential infrastructure systems: power, water and sanitation, transport, and telecommunications. Making them more resilient is critical, the report finds, not only to avoid costly repairs but also to minimize the wide-ranging consequences of natural disasters for the livelihoods and well-being of people. view the World Bank Lifelines: The Resilient Infrastructure Opportunity report
Source: World Bank
IMF Working Paper-Finding the Bad Apples in the Barrel: Using the Market Value of Equity to Signal Banking Sector Vulnerabilities
While the measures may provide a somewhat fuzzy signal, it is better to have a strategy for identifying bad apples, even if sometimes the apples turn out to be fine, than not being able to spot any bad apples before the barrel has been spoiled.
Source: IMF
Beyond Big Pharma | Investing in the Future of Healthcare | WELL Trends in Healthcare and Life Sciences
New entrants from outside the traditional business of healthcare are redefining the $9.59 trillion global healthcare market for consumers, providers, payers, and investors in both developed and developing nations [1].
1.1 Aging Populations
Source: hanetf
Global uncertainty places bond investors in a binary bind
Their future investment experience hinges on whether governments lead the global economy into a worst-case or best-case scenario-something over which they have no control.
Source: dailymaverick.co.za
August 30, 2019--UBS's Strategic Development Lab designed algorithm for sales
HSBC working on bot to send trade suggestions to clients
August 26, 2019--"It's awful. Why did nobody see it coming?" asked Queen Elizabeth II in November 2008 during a visit to the London School of Economics, wondering why nobody had predicted the Global Financial Crisis. The bewilderment wasn't unique to the British monarchy; across the world, many asked the same question.
August 20, 2019--Computers and data scientists can unearth key themes missed by traditional research.
Investment managers within the environmental, social and governance sector are looking to gain an edge by using artificial intelligence, a computer-driven discipline already employed by some of the world's most successful hedge funds.
August 20, 2019--The world faces an invisible crisis of water quality that is eliminating one-third of potential economic growth in heavily polluted areas and threatening human and environmental well-being, according to a World Bank report released today.
August 19, 2019--The net benefit on average of investing in more resilient infrastructure in low- and middle-income countries would be $4.2 trillion with $4 in benefit for each $1 invested, according to a new report from the World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR)
August 16, 2019--Summary:
This paper measures the performance of different metrics in assessing banking system vulnerabilities. It finds that metrics based on equity market valuations of bank capital are better than regulatory capital ratios, and other metrics, in spotting banks that failed (bad apples). This paper proposes that these market-based ratios could be used as a surveillance tool to assess vulnerabilities in the banking sector.
August 15, 2019--Health and wellness are key components to the success of any society. Demographic and economic changes, coupled with increased patient expectations, have led to an exponential increase in the pace and scale with which health care innovations are emerging and disrupting the healthcare sector worldwide.
In addition, major global trends are increasing the need for healthcare services globally. These include:
People worldwide are living longer. Between 2015 and 2050, the proportion of the world's population over 60 years of age will nearly double from 12% to 22%.
August 14, 2019--August 14, 2019--With more than $15-trillion of bonds now offering negative yields and US Treasuries now well below 2% and possibly heading for zero, bond market investors are facing tricky times.
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