At the Q Group in Palm Beach, Florida, on May 7, 2018, Robin Greenwood, a Harvard finance professor, presented a paper, “Bubbles for Fama,” that he co-authored with Andrei Shleifer and Yang You. The Q Group is a discussion group where directors of research and other senior investment professionals interact with finance academics. Founded in 1966, and conducting two seminars …
Is Life Improving? Documenting the Remarkable Progress of Humankind
The rise of populism has been fueled by rhetoric bemoaning the downward plight of the middle class, and that chorus has been joined by many from the left. But are we really worse off than we were a generation or a century ago? Not according to Steven Pinker, whose new book documents the dramatic improvement in lives across the globe. …
Conference Roundup: The Annotated Russell Napier
On April 5, 2018, I attended the Foundation Financial Officers Group (FFOG) joint conference with a European foundation group, EFFIO, in Milan, Italy. The most engaging and erudite speaker was Russell Napier, a former asset manager with Baillie Gifford, Foreign & Colonial, and CLSA, and now independent. Napier founded Electronic Research Interchange (ERIC), a platform for independent investment research; and …