For the purpose of my PhD-thesis in the field of banking I have to make a lot of literature review and analysis of existing studies. Thanks to universities, teachers, research and consulting companies a pure vast of excellent information is available. In the last 3 and half years I really got used to it. However, […]

Subscribers to the Real-World Economics Review Blog have awarded the Dynamite Prize in Economics to Alan Greenspan, Milton Friedman and Larry Summers.
It says at the Real-World Economics Review Blog:
‘Alan Greenspan has been judged the economist most responsible for causing the Global Financial Crisis. He and 2nd and 3rd place finishers Milton Friedman and Larry Summers, […]

A banana skin may be slippery and may cause you to stumble or even fall when you Stepp on it. Hence, ‘Banking Banana Skins 2010 – After the ‘quake’  is the name of a new study from the CSFI Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation   which is sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers. As PwC describes it, […]

trendwatching.com, a leading trend firm, has just released its ‘10 Consumer Trends for 2010′. According to this trend report next year will bring a bonanza of opportunities, as even cautious consumers crave pragmatic or exciting innovations.Its argues that we will see a scene from ‘urban pride’ to ‘forced sustainability’.
The summary:

BUSINESS AS UNUSUAL | Forget the […]

Despite the poor economic situation many finance departments seem to be afraid that their key players could switch to a competitor. More than half of HR managers and finance department heads in the world see the risk to lose their best people. Also in Germany companies are afraid of losing finance specialists. That is one […]

Last we were informed about US government’s decision to rescue Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Both mortgage lenders are under special regulatory supervision now, the so called conservatorship. This event can be described in two sentences, but there are some major implications. We have found the following data that illustrate the size of this public […]

How important is education? Well, we know that education (as process) and knowledge gained (as a result) has become an important factor to differentiate organizations and to establish (or at least to support) competitive advantages. Today knowledge can have the same meaning as a commodity. Information, knowledge and learning have a huge impact on capabilities […]

A couple of days ago (see this post) I had assumed that the financial reports of the fourth quarter would present new cumulative value adjustments. Yesterday Citigroup announced its financial results. Due to writedowns of $ 18.1 billion in the business segments subprime mortgage and increased losses in the segment consumer loans the loss is […]

Due to the so called subprime crisis a large number of banks had to make heavy cumulative value adjustments in the third quarter 2007. The ultimate cause for this crisis was credit default related problems with sub-prime loans for house financing (mortgages) in the US.

New stresses and strains seem to be occurring for the fourth […]

Taking into account market capitalization Chinese and European companies have gained more importance. Opposite to this development the importance of North American companies as well as Japanese Companies declined. Among the top 100 most valuable companies firms from China were able to more than double their market value (+123 per cent). American companies had to […]