Global Business
With ‘Zero Visibility’ into the Russian Economy, the IMF is Parroting Putin’s Line
Rather than admitting ignorance, write Yale’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Stephen Roach, and Steven Tian, the IMF is accepting the Kremlin’s statistics—and fueling pessimism about the impact of sanctions.
How can we preempt investment protectionism?
Ernesto Zedillo, the former president of Mexico and a scholar at Yale, argues that overreacting to fears about sovereign wealth funds could hobble the global financial system. But he also points to the real risks inherent in the global imbalances that have fueled the recent growth of SWFs.
Have global capital markets shifted?
Sensing a broad change in the capital markets in recent years, the Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance set out to better understand what was happening. Jonathan Koppell describes what he and his colleagues learned from a series of discussions with investors, directors, managers, and regulators around the globe.
How do you face the unknown?
Nature abhors a vacuum. Air invades emptiness. Water floods open space. What happens when a wall is breached and markets are allowed to enter countries where they’d previously been banned? In the 1990s, Rosemary Ripley participated in the infusion of private enterprise into former command economies.
Can markets change society?
Professor Zhiwu Chen has been watching what’s happened as China adopts such financial instruments as mortgages and mutual funds. He was born in a rural village in China, and when he goes back, he says, he sees a country that’s being remade by markets.
Are markets local or universal?
A market is a place (virtual or tangible) where buyers and sellers meet. Markets exist everywhere people do. But each market has its particular customs, as simple as a handshake or as intricate as a 40-page contract.
How do you manage a global financial crisis?
When hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management plummeted toward bankruptcy in September 1998, its potential dissolution threatened the financial markets with disaster. Herb Allison, then the president of Merrill Lynch, was one of the few people in a position to avert a crash landing, but first he had to get a cranky coalition of competitive bankers and traders lined up behind his bailout plan.