Friends of African Village Libraries (I post regularly here)- Daytime session at Sherigu Community Library
- La deuxième journée des activités de café littéraire à la bibliothèque de Boni
- Échanges avec la nouvelle gérante de la bibliothèque de Koho
- Reprise des activités de la bibliothèque mobile Pénélope
- Sortie de la Bibliothèque Mobile Pénélope à l’école Sainte Thérèse
- Bonne nouvelle pour les amoureux de la lecture à Niankorodougou
- Bibliothèque communautaire de Zimtenga ! Les livres attendent patiemment le retour des communautés
- Bilan des activités du mois d’août de la bibliothèque de Bougounam
- Bilan des premières journées du café littéraire
- Nyariga community library, daytime activities
Author Archives: mkevane
Harassing the government of Puerto Rico: “I want my money.”
What the hedge funds can do that individual small investors cannot is constantly harass and nip the heels of Puerto Rico, thus possibly securing higher payment eventually. Bloomberg summarizes the major suits against Puerto Rico that deal with debt repayment: … Continue reading
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Awesome complement-correction to Alan Blinder’s rather saccharine assessment in When the Music Stops
But after what seems an exhaustive review of a now voluminous record of transcripts, exhibits and other evidence from multiple official inquiries, Professor Ball concludes there is “no evidence” that the decision-makers “examined the adequacy of Lehman’s collateral, or that … Continue reading
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Helicopter money, by Willem Buiter
But James Hamilton last week provided a nicer, more intelligible, layman’s summary. A helicopter drop of money is a permanent /irreversible increase in the nominal stock of fiat base money with a zero nominal interest rate, which respects the intertemporal … Continue reading
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Short-run determinants of the euro-dollar exchange rate over period 2011-14
A nice empirical application exercise of augmenting the interest parity approach to try to determine what is driving changes in expected exchange rates that then affect the current spot rate. Here, the authors emphasize sovereign risk, that is, risk that … Continue reading
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IGEL 2016: Candice Burkett on how readers interpret fiction
At the recent IGEL meetings in Chicago I liked a paper by Candice Burkett about the correlates of more sophisticated interpretations of literary texts. She and coauthor Susan Goldman measured how often students mentioned three kinds of indicators: basic gestures … Continue reading
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Illegal immigration in the U.S.
Fact Tank – November 19, 2015 The number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. has stabilized in recent years after decades of rapid growth. But there have been shifts in the states where unauthorized immigrants live and the countries where … Continue reading
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What are the facts about crime in the United States?
Presumably we check in with the FBI. If their statistics, however problematic, are not “the facts” then I do not know what is. Here is the one paragraph of their latest annual report (yes, a one year lag). 09/28/15 Today, … Continue reading
Posted in Burkina Faso
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Someone found macroeconomics at the Republican convention!
About midway through the Republican platform, there appears this statement: “We support reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 which prohibits commercial banks from engaging in high-risk investments.” It’s a head-scratcher, because reimposing Glass-Steagall would be an about-face for Republicans. The … Continue reading
Posted in Burkina Faso
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Time to Renegotiate Prepa Deal, according to Vicente Feliciano in Carribean Business
Opinion piece by Vicente Feliciano in Carribean Business: Agreements reached under duress come undone when the power of one party to impose the deal subsides. The agreement between the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (Prepa) and its bondholders was reached … Continue reading
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The Puerto Rico Oversight Board
A lot of power to the Puerto Rico Oversight Board. The Congressional Research Service has a comprehensible survey of the Act.
Posted in Burkina Faso
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Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla: “Now we have more leverage.”
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Negative interest rates coming to a mortgage lender near you… seems like the European financial system is adapting
Major beneficiaries include Macroeconomics textbook publishers. In all jurisdictions, banks, motivated by deposit withdrawal concerns, have been reluctant to pass negative rates through to retail depositors. Partly to limit the resulting impact on their net interest margins, some central banks … Continue reading
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Careers in finance: Evaluating MBS and CDO bundles of thousands of mortgages
There is a very nice intro at The Third Way on securitization (in the context of The Big Short). A nice thing they do is link to the SEC filing for a CDO offered by Long Beach Mortgage (that was … Continue reading
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Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend
I am about three years behind the times, but what a phenomenal novel. Very small in its subject, the childhood friendship of two girls, from about ten to sixteen, growing up in Naples in the 1950s, the book nevetheless feels … Continue reading
Posted in Book and film reviews
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Others do the reading so we don’t have to: Critique of the “gender neutral parental leave favors male academics” paper
Regarding the 30% tenure rate, it turns out the key words are “at their first jobs.” This analysis compared people who got tenure at their first job to everybody else — which means that leaving for a better outside offer … Continue reading
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IGEL 2016 conference: Stephen Briner on parody
An interesting paper at the recent IGEL 2016 conference was by Stephen Briner about detecting and reasoning about parody texts. The question is how easy it is to discern parody in the absence of a referent text or absence of … Continue reading
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Sheila Bair’s take on bondholders
As she thinks back on it, Bair views her disagreements with her fellow regulators as a kind of high-stakes philosophical debate about the role of bondholders. Her perspective is that bondholders should take losses when an institution fails. When the … Continue reading
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Nice profile and interview with Sheila Bair and her role as FDIC chair in 2008 financial crisis
Quite different from Alan Blinder’s portrayal of Bair. As an observer of the financial crisis and its aftermath, I have frankly admired most of what she tried to do. She was tough-minded and straightforward. On financial matters, she seemed to … Continue reading
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Impact of the Dodd-Frank Act on credit ratings agencies
The very broad language of the act seems to have of had some significant impact in agency behavior. In response to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) in … Continue reading
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My brother Tim Kevane’s law article on… something called the Viking Pump decision
I have little idea of the technicalities here, but I thought that any paragraph starting with “bitter irony” should be highlighted. The bitter irony of the noncumulation provision is that an insured will now be able to designate the tower … Continue reading
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