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Category Archives: Economy

CRISK: Measuring the Climate Risk Exposure of the Financial System

New York Fed – Liberty Street Economics, Hyeyoon Jung: “A growing number of climate-related policies have been adopted globally in the past thirty years (see chart below). The risk to economic activity from changes in policies in response to climate risks, such as carbon taxes and green subsidies, is often referred to as transition risk.… Continue Reading

The Scholarly Fingerprinting Industry

Jefferson Pooley. The Scholarly Fingerprinting Industry Amerikastudien/American Studies 68, no. 1 (2023): 18–21. https://doi.org/10.33675/AMST/2023/1/41. 18 Amst 68.1 (2023): 5-26 “Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Springer Nature, Wiley, and SAGE: Many researchers know that the five giant firms publish most of the world’s scholarship. Fifty years of acquisitions and journal launches have yielded a stunningly profitable oligopoly,… Continue Reading

FDIC’s proposal for deposit reform is narrow and uninspiring—and it just might work

Quartz: “The bank regulator wants Congress to lift the deposit insurance cap for business payroll accounts. When it comes to deposit insurance rules, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) only wants the US Congress to change what it absolutely must. In a new report issued in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank’s failure, the banking regulator… Continue Reading

China Locks Information on the Country Inside a Black Box

WSJ – Restrictions on Wind database and other information channels add to campaign to curb foreign influence: “China’s party-state, long steeped in secrecy, is creating a black box around information on the world’s second-largest economy, alarming global businesses and investors. Prodded by President Xi Jinping’s emphasis on national security, authorities in recent months have restricted… Continue Reading

Has AI hacked the operating system of human civilization

The New York Times: ‘The Godfather of A.I.’ Leaves Google and Warns of Danger Ahead – For half a century, Geoffrey Hinton nurtured the technology at the heart of chatbots like ChatGPT. Now he worries it will cause serious harm. Gizmodo – AI Will Make Our Society Even More Unequal, Economists Warn – AI threatens… Continue Reading

Federal Reserve Board announces the results from the review of the supervision and regulation of Silicon Valley Bank

“The Federal Reserve Board on Friday, April 28, 2023 announced the results from the review of the supervision and regulation of Silicon Valley Bank, led by Vice Chair for Supervision Michael S. Barr. The review finds four key takeaways on the causes of the bank’s failure: Silicon Valley Bank’s board of directors and management failed… Continue Reading

The FDIC’s Report on the Failure of Signature Bank

FDIC Releases Report Detailing Supervision of the Former Signature Bank, New York, New York – April 28, 2023 “Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Chief Risk Officer Marshall Gentry released FDIC’s Supervision of Signature Bank, an internal review evaluating the agency’s supervision of Signature Bank, New York, New York, from 2017 until its failure in March… Continue Reading

GAO Report on SVB, NY Fed Report on SVB

Bank Regulation – GAO-23-106736 – Preliminary Review of Agency Actions Related to March 2023 Bank Failures – Report to the Committee on Financial Services, House of Representatives, April 2023. Released April 28, 2023: “Risky business strategies along with weak liquidity and risk management contributed to the recent failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.… Continue Reading

Mapping IRS Tax Return Filings Reveals Marked Differences in the Distribution of Income and Dependents

“Most Americans filed their taxes recently, not only providing the federal government with funds needed to operate but also providing the IRS (and ultimately the public) with important data about the reported amounts and sources of income, their number of dependents, and other factors that shape the distribution of financial means across the country. In… Continue Reading

Generative AI at Work

Generative AI at Work, Erik Brynjolfsson, Danielle Li, and Lindsey R. Raymond. NBER Working Paper No. 31161 April 2023: “We study the staggered introduction of a generative AI-based conversational assistant using data from 5,179 customer support agents. Access to the tool increases productivity, as measured by issues resolved per hour, by 14 percent on average,… Continue Reading

The Municipal Drinking Water Database

Hughes S, Kirchhoff CJ, Conedera K, Friedman M (2023) The Municipal Drinking Water Database. PLOS Water 2(4): e0000081. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000081 “Drinking water services in the U.S. are critical for public health and economic development but face technical, political, and administrative challenges. Understanding the root cause of these challenges and how to overcome them is hindered by… Continue Reading

Big Tech Lobbyists Explain How They Took Over Washington

reThink Trade: “An amazing research paper unearths how the tech industry invented the concept of digital trade and sold it to government officials. Progressive trade advocates continue to express confusion over the Biden administration’s trade policies. Despite a U.S. trade representative (USTR) in Katherine Tai who has prioritized a worker-centered trade vision that breaks with… Continue Reading