Predicting Mutual Fund Performance Using (Legal) Inside Information
How does an investor choose which mutual fund to invest in? She’ll want a measure of the fund manager’s skill, and the most natural measure is his past performance. But, a ton of research has...
View ArticleUsing Behavioral Economics to Keep Resolutions
In 2010, David Cameron set up the “Behavioural Insights Team” (nicknamed the “Nudge Unit”) to use behavioral economics to “nudge” individuals to take superior decisions for themselves and society, e.g....
View ArticlePersonal Leadership
The Secrets of Time Management. Article in CityAM. VIDEO: Fulfilling Careers and Full Lives. Talk on career choice and personal leadership. VIDEO: Take Every Opportunity. 3-minute social experiment...
View ArticleTop Five TEDx talks
I previously posted my top ten TED talks. TEDx is similar to TED but is an independently organised event under the TED banner, similar to a franchise. Many famous “TED” talks are actually from an...
View ArticleHigher Stock Returns When CEOs Own More Shares
Executive compensation is a controversial topic. US CEOs earn 373 times the average worker, and so it takes them less than a day to earn the same as an average worker does in a whole year. But, despite...
View ArticleThe Case for Brexit
I’m strongly in favour of the UK remaining part of the EU. However, I recently went to a talk given by a Brexit supporter, to hear the other side. I believe that he/she gave some persuasive arguments....
View ArticleSize Matters, If You Control Your Junk
The first stock market trading strategy ever discovered was the size anomaly. Banz (1981) found that small stocks outperform large stocks, even after taking into account their higher risk. This finding...
View ArticleThe Case for Remain
Today is perhaps the biggest decision the UK will ever face. Under 18s will be most affected by this decision but can’t vote. Brits can. More important than which way we vote is that we should vote....
View ArticleThe Rational Response to Brexit
The Brexit vote was disappointing, for the reasons I wrote about in my earlier post. But, what’s done can’t be changed. What’s the best way to respond to it? It’s hugely tempting to accuse the...
View ArticleBrexit
The Case for Brexit The Case for Remain The Rational Response to Brexit. We’ve voted for Brexit; what should we do about it? Two Ideas for Making Brexit a Success. CityAM The post Brexit appeared...
View ArticleEight Common Myths About CEO Pay
Few business topics capture the public’s interest – and ire – as CEO pay. Indeed, a major reason why executives carried little weight in the Brexit referendum was the belief that they are overpaid...
View ArticleHow Virtually Every Pay Regulation Has Backfired
Few topics make the public as angry as CEO pay. In the UK, the average FTSE 100 CEO earned £5.4m in 2015, 148 times the median worker. For US S&P 500 CEOs, these figures are even more extreme:...
View ArticleTranslating the New USS Pension Rules Into Plain English
Andy Haldane, the Chief Economist of the Bank of England, said that pensions are so complex that even someone “moderately financially literate” like he can’t understand them. This complexity certainly...
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Why the MSCI Study Does NOT Show That Equity Incentives Backfire
MSCI have released an impactful study entitled “Are CEOs Paid for Performance? Evaluating the Effectiveness of Equity Incentives”, purporting to show that equity incentives lead to poor long-term...
View ArticleLong-Term Executive Incentives Improve Innovation and Corporate Responsibility
Executive compensation is fixed and needs reform. But, most of the calls for reform focus on the wrong dimensions. They focus on the level of pay, or the ratio of executive pay to median worker pay –...
View ArticleWhy has CEO pay risen so much faster than worker pay?
Arguably the most convincing “smoking gun” evidence that CEO pay is excessive is how it’s risen much faster than median worker pay. In the U.S., CEO pay was $10 million, 350 times that of the average...
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The returns to investing in grass-roots sport and the distraction of Olympic...
“Unless we look more creatively about how we engage everyone in physical activity, we may win medals but we will be bottom of the league table on health and wellbeing” – Paralympian Baroness Tanni...
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Blockchains: How they work, and how they may transform the world
(This post was originally featured in the Review of Finance Managing Editor’s blog, which summarizes the lead article of each issue in a non-technical manner.) We hear blockchains mentioned all the...
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Simplicity, Transparency, and Sustainability: A New Model For CEO Pay
How did BP CEO Bob Dudley get paid £14m in 2015, despite the stock price falling by over 15%? Because of a complex, opaque pay scheme known as a Long-Term Incentive Plan (“LTIP”). A LTIP pays the...
View ArticleHouse of Commons Report on Corporate Governance
Today the House of Commons Select Committee on Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) published its report on corporate governance, after extensive consultation of oral and written testimony...
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