My wife suggested an addition to my list of bad incentives created by pharmaceutical patents. It is actually one of two closely related problems. These are possibly the most harmful of all as they can lead to patients directly getting worse treatments, as well as wasting money. Continue reading
Month: November 2009
Peak Google?
Alan Patrick is sticking his neck out and calling the top on Google’s growth. I am not convinced, and there are specific points that I have comments on. Continue reading
Fixing capitalism: reactions and replies
The reactions to my post on fixing capitalism have surprised me: almost everyone who has blogged or tweeted on it agrees with the broad thrust of what I advocate. For proposals so far from the political mainstream, what does that mean? Perhaps is shows how for the politicians are from a popular demand for change. There also a few points that need replies. Continue reading
The market is just inefficient enough
Richard Beddard’s extensive comments on my last post on efficient markets deserve a full reply. He is correct that I did not make it clear that the paper says that a behavioural explanation of the abnormal returns is possible. Continue reading
How to fix capitalism
The recession and the crisis and banking are the least of the reasons for thinking that we need reforms. the crisis of capitalism goes much deeper: the influence big business has on governments (and the warped policies this leads to), increasing central control of the economy and the general move away from free markets.. I have some modest proposals on how to fix capitalism. Continue reading
Evidence for market efficiency
A working paper that is nicely summarised on the Empirical Finance Research Blog shows how markets react to information rapidly, that they are not perfectly efficient, and how those setting the efficient market price are rewarded. Continue reading
Two economists on labour and value
I came across two interesting quotes from two famous economists of the 18th and 19th centuries: Continue reading
Time for growth investing
I am hardly the first person to recommend switching to growth investing. There has recently been crop of strategists arguing that we are at the point in the cycle where growth is likely to out-perform, as economic growth returns. Continue reading
Educating Lucy: Maths
As I have said before, I do not like the way in which schools teach maths, so what do I do instead? Do stuff that is fun, that encourages the underlying skills rather than focusing on arithmetic. Continue reading
Value investing, efficient markets and CAPM
The value effect, does not cast doubt on the efficient market hypothesis (as Richard Beddard suggests), but on CAPM. Nonetheless, I still think investors should use CAPM, or something very like it. Continue reading