January, 2020

• 8 January

  Fed should keep looking forward

  

  The past decade experienced a revolution in how the Federal Reserve conducts monetary policy. While new tools such as quantitative easing have received the most attention, just as significant have been the changes made in how the Federal Open Market Committee sets and controls the level of short-term interest rates. Before the financial crisis, the Fed controlled short-term rates by ...

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• 8 January

  Benettons must tread carefully on Atlantia

  The Benetton name has become tarnished in Italy. The billionaire family has become synonymous with troubled infrastructure group Atlantia SpA, now facing serious financial repercussions over the tragic collapse of the Morandi road bridge in 2018. The episode starkly underscores how business is a complex social activity which depends on much more than legal contracts between its stakeholders. The investigation ...

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• 8 January

  Ghosn attacks system that crowned him

  Carlos Ghosn was nothing short of a celebrity in Japan. He carefully cultivated the image of a rebel outsider, but operated successfully enough within Japan Inc. to be adopted as something of a national hero after resuscitating Nissan Motor Co. He took on the system, yet scored its biggest victories when it was still intact. Ghosn ended up taking advantage ...

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• 8 January

  Other people’s money was tech innovation of decade

  

  Technology changed every molecule of life in the 2010s. Airbnb, Uber and other young companies morphed the physical complexion of cities and how they work. The growing prevalence of e-commerce, fast internet connections and smartphones in everyone’s pockets shifted how we shop, behave and are entertained — with both good and bad ripple effects. Even the stodgiest industries were forced ...

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• 8 January

  Hate the donor and love the donation

  

  Suppose that a nation, a company or an individual wants to give a lot of money to a university, a non-profit group or an individual researcher. Suppose that many people think that the potential donor is morally abhorrent, or has done morally abhorrent things. Is it wrong to take the money? A lot of real-world cases raise this difficult question. ...

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• 8 January

  Use simple economics to contain health care costs

  

  Spending on US health care is out of control, expanding steadily from 5% of GDP in 1960 to 18% in 2018. There are, however, ways to curb the explosion in costs from both the demand and the supply side. Health care costs per capita in the US are almost double those of other developed countries, but life expectancy is lower ...

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• 7 January

  Social security benefits total AED5.55 billion in 9 months

  

  Abu Dhabi / WAM The value of financial aid and other social benefits provided by the Federal Government to UAE citizens in the first nine months of 2019 increased to AED5.55 billion, a two percent rise compared to the same period in 2018, according to the Ministry of Finance. Government expenses categorised as financial aid and social benefits accounted for ...

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• 7 January

  Quartet condemns military intervention in Libya

  ABU DHABI / WAM The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Egypt have issued a joint statement rejecting the Turkish parliament’s passing of the motion earlier this week to allow a military intervention in Libya. Saudi Arabia’s Consultative Assembly issued the joint statement, along with the UAE’s Federal National Council, Egypt’s House of Representatives, and Bahrain’s Consultative Council, in light of ...

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• 7 January

  India sees slowest growth since 2013

  

  Bloomberg India’s economy is on track for its slowest growth since at least 2013, weighed down by a shadow banking crisis, weak investment and a slump in spending. Gross domestic product will grow 5% in the year through March 2020, the Statistics Ministry said in a statement in New Delhi on Tuesday. That is in line with the median estimate ...

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• 7 January

  Oil dips as investors await Iran response

  

  Bloomberg Oil fell from a three-month high in London as traders waited to see whether the clash between the US and Iran would lead to a disruption in Middle East crude supplies. Brent futures retreated towards $68 a barrel after a two-day surge following a US airstrike that killed a top Iranian general pushed prices above $70 for the first ...

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