Global ETF News Older than One Year
Blockchain consortium raises record $100m
May 23, 2017--Seven-month effort marked by tensions among banks assessing which projects to back
Source: FT.com
Taking action on climate change will boost economic growth
May 23, 2017--- Integrating measures to tackle climate change into regular economic policy will have a positive impact on economic growth over the medium and long term, according to a new OECD report prepared in the context of the German Presidency of the G20.
Investing in Climate, Investing in Growth shows that bringing together the growth and climate agendas, rather than treating climate as a separate issue, could add 1% to average economic output in G20 countries by 2021 and lift 2050 output by up to 2.8%. If the economic benefits of avoiding climate change impacts such as coastal flooding or storm damage are factored in, the net increase to 2050 GDP would be nearly 5%.
Source: OECD
IMF Working paper-Trading with China: Productivity Gains, Job Losses
May 23, 2017--Summary:
We analyze the impact on productivity in advanced economies of fast-growing trade with China between the mid-1990s and late-2000s, separately identifying the export and import channels. We use country-sector-level data for 18 advanced economies and, similar to Autor, Dorn, and Hanson (2013), exploit exogenous variation in trade with China in a given country-sector by instrumenting imports from (exports to) China in a given country-sector with the average imports from (exports to) China in the same sector in other advanced economies.
Our estimates point to large productivity gains from trading with China—the (exogenous) rise of China in global trade may have increased the level of total factor productivity by about 1.9 percent, or 12.3 percent of the overall increase over the sample period, in the median country-sector. By contrast, using a similar empirical strategy, we find adverse employment effects of Chinese imports in exposed country-industries, consistent with previous studies. Taken together, these findings point to large gains from free trade, while underscoring the scope for a more active policy role in redistributing them, particularly by easing workers' transition between jobs and industries.
view the IMF Working paper-IMF-Trading with China: Productivity Gains, Job Losses
Source: IMF
Number of Carbon Pricing Initiatives Nearly Doubled over Past Five Years, says New Report
More Countries Expand Carbon Pricing Efforts
May 23, 20176--The number of carbon pricing initiatives implemented or scheduled has almost doubled over the past five years, according to Carbon Pricing Watch 2017, a new publication released at the Innovate4Climate Summit today.
Since 2016, eight new carbon pricing initiatives have been put in place-three at a national level and five at a subnational level.
view the Carbon Pricing Watch 2017
Source: World Bank
STOXX changes composition of benchmark indices
May 23, 2017--STOXX Ltd., the operator of Deutsche Böerse Group's index business, and a global provider of innovative and tradable index concepts, today announced the new composition of STOXX Benchmarks and their sub and sector indices, among them the STOXX Europe 600 Index, STOXX North America 600 Index and STOXX Asia/Pacific 600 Index
Source: Deutsche Börse Group
How to value bitcoin with a traditional valuation measure
May 22, 2017--A London-based financial analyst who prefers to remain anonymous has constructed a bitcoin valuation model he's called BitVal.
The model is a bid to try and figure out the fair value of the currency, since its price has soared past $2200.
Source: BIS
IMF Working Paper-Riding the Energy Transition: Oil Beyond 2040
May 22, 2017--Summary:
Recent technological developments and past technology transitions suggest that the world could be on the verge of a profound shift in transportation technology.
The return of the electric car and its adoption, like that of the motor vehicle in place of horses in early 20th century, could cut oil consumption substantially in the coming decades. Our analysis suggests that oil as the main fuel for transportation could have a much shorter life span left than commonly assumed. In the fast adoption scenario, oil prices could converge to the level of coal prices, about $15 per barrel in 2015 prices by the early 2040s. In this possible future, oil could become the new coal.
view the IMF Working Paper-Riding the Energy Transition: Oil Beyond 2040
Source: IMF
IMF Working Paper-Sovereign Bond Prices, Haircuts and Maturity
May 22, 2017--Summary:
Rejecting a common assumption in the sovereign debt literature, we document that creditor losses ("haircuts") during sovereign restructuring episodes are asymmetric across debt instruments.
We code a comprehensive dataset on instrument-specific haircuts for 28 debt restructurings with private creditors in 1999-2015 and find that haircuts on shorter-term debt are larger than those on debt of longer maturity. In a standard asset pricing model, we show that increasing short-run default risk in the run-up to a restructuring episode can explain the stylized fact. The data confirms the predicted relation between perceived default risk, bond prices, and haircuts by maturity.
view the IMF Working Paper-Sovereign Bond Prices, Haircuts and Maturity
Source: IMF
