Month: June 2010

Can the Buy Side Take on the Sell Side?

By James Kwak

The Economist did not like 13 Bankers: “A broader perspective would have led to more nuanced conclusions. The origins of America’s financial ‘oligarchy’, for instance, might have more to do with campaign-finance rules and political appointees than banks’ size. The faith that Messrs Johnson and Kwak put in merely capping the size of banks is misplaced.”*

But a reader pointed us to the Economist columnist who goes by the name of Buttonwood (the site of the founding of the New York Stock Exchange), who seems a bit more favorable. In a recent column criticizing the rent-seeking of the financial sector, Buttonwood seems to tell broadly the same story:

“Something has clearly changed within the past 40 years. Banking and asset management used to be perceived as fairly dull jobs, which did not attract a significant wage premium. But after 1980, financial wages started to climb much more quickly than those of engineers, another profession that ought to have benefited from technological complexity.

“Around the same time, banks became more profitable.”

He even nods toward breaking up the banks:

“At the moment, governments are wading in with all kinds of levies and regulations, which will probably have unintended consequences. Rather than tackle the big problem (for example, by breaking up the banks), they waste their time on populist measures like banning short-selling.”

Continue reading “Can the Buy Side Take on the Sell Side?” →

The Perils of Studying Economics

By James Kwak

Patrick McGeehan at the New York Times recently wrote about a New York Fed study finding that studying economics makes you a Republican. The headline conclusion is that the more economics classes you take, the more likely you are to be a Republican. Majoring in economics or business is also more likely to make you a Republican. (See Table 2 in the original paper.) The study is based on thousands of observations of undergraduates at four large universities over three decades, so it is focused on undergraduate-level economics.

Studying economics also affects your position on several public policy issues. Of seven issues, economics courses were significantly associated with the five following positions (Table 6):

  • Tariffs are bad.
  • Trade deficits are not so bad.
  • The government should not cap oil prices in response to a supply shock.
  • Raising the minimum wage increase unemployment for low-wage workers.
  • Income distribution should not be more equal.

These are all pro-free market, anti-government intervention positions.

Continue reading “The Perils of Studying Economics” →

Investment Banks and the World Cup

By James Kwak

A reader alerted me to the World Cup forecasting competition, which includes links to the predictions made by several major investment banks’ models, and some data you can use if you want to give it a shot. The predictions:

  • JPMorgan Chase: England
  • UBS: Brazil (UBS also has South Africa as the team most likely to make the second round, which seems surprising.)
  • Goldman: Brazil
  • Danske Bank: Brazil

I typically root for France, because I started following soccer while living in France back in the early 1990s, but I don’t think I can this time because (a) they don’t deserve to be in the World Cup Finals, having beaten Ireland on an obvious hand ball and (b) I can’t stand their coach, who has managed to transform an incredibly talented group of players into a mediocre team.

As for who will win, I would go with Nate Silver (who recently signed with the Times for three years) if he made a prediction, but I don’t think he has.

Enjoy.

Richard Fisher (Federal Reserve Bank Of Dallas): Larry Summers, The G20, And Financial Dementia

By Simon Johnson, co-author of 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and The Next Financial Meltdown

Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Fed, has long been a proponent of serious financial sector reform.  As a former commercial banker, he sees quite clearly that the legislation now headed into “reconciliation” between House and Senate versions amounts to very little.  He also knows that pounding away repeatedly on this theme is the best way to influence his colleagues within the Fed and across the policy community more broadly.

He is now taking his game to a new, higher level.  Couched in the diplomatic language of senior officials, his speech on June 3 to the SW Graduate School of Banking was both a carefully calibrated assault on the administration’s general “softly, softly” approach to the big banks and a direct refutation of arguments put forward by Larry Summers in particular. 

As the title of Mr. Fisher’s speech implies, if the legislation is not real financial reform (and it is not, according to him), then our current policy trajectory amounts to facilitating further rounds of financial dementia. Continue reading “Richard Fisher (Federal Reserve Bank Of Dallas): Larry Summers, The G20, And Financial Dementia” →

French Connection: The Eurozone Crisis Worsens Sharply

By Peter Boone and Simon Johnson

The big news is France.  With sentiment worsening across Europe, France has lost its relative safe haven status – credit default swap spreads on French government debt were up sharply today.

The trigger – oddly enough – was Hungary’s announcement that its budget is worse than expected (blaming the previous government; this is starting to become the European pattern) and in the current fragile environment discussed yesterday, this relatively small piece of news spooked investors.  But these developments only reinforced a trend that was already in place. Continue reading “French Connection: The Eurozone Crisis Worsens Sharply” →

The Maginot Line Illusion

By Peter Boone and Simon Johnson

Many commentators suggest Spain is now the euro zone’s Maginot line.  The argument is clear:  Spain, with GDP over $1.3 trillion (8th largest in the world; 5th largest in Europe) and its large outstanding bank and public debt, is simply too big to fail without causing irreparable harm to the euro zone financial system.  If we dig in here, the reasoning goes, eurozone market upheavals can be stopped.

Just as Germany did in 1940, in past weeks global market forces circumvented this new Maginot line without serious resistance.  The events that shook equity markets were not just in Spain; they were everywhere in the world.  The cost of protecting against default on India’s largest private bank rose 79BP, or 44%, and the cost of protecting against major Korean banks’ default similarly rose 45%.  Oil prices collapsed and emerging markets found their access to credit markets dried up.  The interest rate for lending between banks in US dollars (LIBOR) shot up, and investors piled funds into their currently perceived “safe-havens” driving down the yields of German, French, and US bonds.

This pattern reflects the core problem facing world markets today.  Investors have already begun to extrapolate from eurozone problems to understand that the world remains a highly dangerous place.  The latent dangers include our overreliance on rapid Asian growth that might falter, the pressure for sharp fiscal tightening in nations with high deficits (other than in the world’s “safe havens”), and highly leveraged banks that continue to own toxic real estate, weak sovereign debt, and other assets.  If world financial markets once again decide their risk appetite is again low, there are many unsustainable leveraged institutions and governments that are in for a tough ride. Continue reading “The Maginot Line Illusion” →

Eugene Fama: “Too Big To Fail” Perverts Activities and Incentives

By Simon Johnson, co-author of 13 Bankers

In our continuing financial debate, one of the central myths – put about by big banks and also not seriously disputed by the administration – is that reining in “too big to fail” banks is in some sense an “anti-market” approach.

Speaking on CNBC at the end last week, Gene Fama – probably one of the most pro-market economists left standing – pointed out that this view is nonsense. (The clip is here, and also on Greg Mankiw’s blog; TBTF is the focus from about the 5:50 minute mark.)

Having banks that are Too Big To Fail, according to Fama, is “perverting activities and incentives” in financial markets – giving big financial firms,

“a license to increase risk; where the taxpayers will bear the downside and firms will bear the upside.” Continue reading “Eugene Fama: “Too Big To Fail” Perverts Activities and Incentives” →