January, 2018

• 14 January

  Behavioural economics needs a unifying theory

  

  Behavioural economics has always met with a bit more resistance than it deserved. This is true even though a number of behavioural researchers have won the Nobel—Daniel Kahneman, Robert Shiller and Richard Thaler just last year. Despite this and other forms of official recognition at the highest levels, there continue to be some economists who have an almost instinctive aversion ...

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• 14 January

  Jumping on the 218,000% crypto bandwagon is hard

  

  Don’t be too derisive of Eastman Kodak Co.’s yearning to reclaim its lost glory by jumping on the crypto bandwagon. If the dotcom bubble holds any lessons, the blockchain gravy train might have plenty to go around yet. Investors aren’t waiting to see if the proposed KodakCoin is just a fad, or the real new, new thing for a company ...

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• 14 January

  Zuckerberg blew up Facebook from the inside

  

  For much of the past few months, Mark Zuckerberg has been thinking aloud about Facebook Inc.’s mission. He kept saying he wanted Facebook to become a place for meaningful social interaction. His resolution for 2018 was to ‘fix’ Facebook. It was a call to arms, but for what? It wasn’t clear how his musings might translate into substantive changes to ...

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• 14 January

  Wells Fargo determined to keep mortgage crown

  

  Bloomberg Wells Fargo & Co. isn’t giving up its mortgage-lending crown without a fight. The bank wants to hold on to its top spot as the whale of the $1.7 billion industry in the US, even as it predicts profit margins on making home loans will shrink this year and it faces pressure from rival Quicken Loans Inc. “We want ...

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• 14 January

  Canada’s bank regulator pushes for faster adoption of Basel III rules

  

  Bloomberg Canada’s financial watchdog plans to revise capital requirements for the nation’s banks, drafting more risk-sensitive interim rules while moving faster towards adopting new criteria set by global regulators. The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions’ Carolyn Rogers announced the changes during a speech at a conference hosted by RBC Capital Markets in Toronto. She said Canadian banks would ...

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• 14 January

  BOJ tightening to begin by mid-2018

  

  Bloomberg Japan’s economy will exceed growth forecasts this year, prompting the central bank to tighten monetary policy by mid-year, said Allen Sinai, president of Decision Economics Inc. Sinai said he expects Japan’s economy to grow 2 percent in 2018, and even faster in 2019, perhaps as much as 2.5 percent. “What has snuck up on everybody is the world business ...

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• 14 January

  Morocco adopts more flexible exchange rate to boost standing

  

  Bloomberg Morocco will adopt a more flexible exchange rate from Monday as part of a long-awaited plan aimed at boosting the competitiveness of the North African nation’s economy. Bank Al-Maghrib, Morocco’s central bank, said in a statement it would widen the official band within which the dirham fluctuates to 5 percent, with a maximum daily moves of 2.5 percent above ...

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• 14 January

  Philippines plays catch-up as more banks tap big data

  Bloomberg The Philippine central bank is beefing up its data tools to get a better handle on a fast-growing economy, which is starting to flash warning signs because of a rapid buildup of debt. Like central banks across Southeast Asia, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is pushing to capture information from “big data,” drawn from sources such as online search engines, ...

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• 14 January

  Stranded Sukhoi jets haunt troubled airline

  

  Bloomberg In cavernous jet hangars in and around Mexico City, Interjet has a secret. Four of the Mexican airline’s Sukhoi Superjet 100s—out of a fleet of 22—have been grounded for at least five months because of engine maintenance delays. The Russian-made aircraft, which average just four years old, are now being cannibalised, an industry term for when a plane is ...

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• 14 January

  Bid to collect internet sales tax gets top US court review

  Bloomberg The US Supreme Court will consider freeing state and local governments to collect billions of dollars in sales taxes from online retailers, agreeing to revisit a 26-year-old ruling that has made much of the internet a tax-free zone. Heeding calls from traditional retailers and dozens of states, the justices said they’ll hear South Dakota’s contention that the 1992 ruling ...

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