Financial economics

Charles River Associates (CRA) Reports Financial Results for the First Quarter of 2023

Retrieved on:

Thursday, May 4, 2023

Charles River Associates (NASDAQ: CRAI), a worldwide leader in providing economic, financial and management consulting services , today announced financial results for the fiscal first quarter ended April 1, 2023.

Key Points:

Charles River Associates (NASDAQ: CRAI), a worldwide leader in providing economic, financial and management consulting services , today announced financial results for the fiscal first quarter ended April 1, 2023.
“During the first quarter, CRA continued to build momentum in the business and demand for our services.
Four practices—Antitrust & Competition Economics, Financial Economics, Forensic Services, and Labor & Employment—grew year over year, with Forensics Services and Labor & Employment each posting double-digit revenue growth.
These remarks are offered to provide the investment community with additional background on CRA’s financial results prior to the start of the conference call.

New Global Prize For Sustainable Finance Literacy Launched As Sim Kee Boon Institute Named Knowledge Partner of the Money Awareness and Inclusion Awards

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Thursday, March 16, 2023

Finance, Consulting, Other Education, Banking, Continuing, Professional Services, Education, Training, Knowledge, MAIA, Research, Financial economics, Literacy, Internet, F.C. Maia, Non-governmental organization, Management

The Money Awareness and Inclusion Awards (MAIA) today welcomed Singapore Management University’s Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics (SKBI) onboard as official Knowledge Partner for three years.

Key Points:

The Money Awareness and Inclusion Awards (MAIA) today welcomed Singapore Management University’s Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics (SKBI) onboard as official Knowledge Partner for three years.
SKBI is also the exclusive sponsor of MAIA’s newest award category for green financial literacy education, which will now be named “The Sim Kee Boon Institute for Sustainable Finance Literacy Prize”.
Launched in 2022, the MAIAs recognise and celebrate initiatives aimed at solving the problem of weak financial literacy.
Dave Fernandez, SKBI Director and Professor of Finance (Practice) says, “As an academic institute whose key areas of focus are financial inclusion and literacy, sustainable finance and financial technology, we are pleased to be a part of the Money Awareness and Inclusion Awards.

Charles River Associates (CRA) Reports Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2022 Financial Results

Retrieved on:

Thursday, March 2, 2023

Charles River Associates (NASDAQ: CRAI), a worldwide leader in providing economic, financial and management consulting services , today announced financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2022.

Key Points:

Charles River Associates (NASDAQ: CRAI), a worldwide leader in providing economic, financial and management consulting services , today announced financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2022.
“CRA once again set financial highs as fiscal 2022 topped a record-setting fiscal 2021,” said Paul Maleh, CRA’s President and Chief Executive Officer.
Non-GAAP EBITDA margin was 12.5% on a constant currency basis.”
“Our fiscal 2022 financial performance demonstrates our continued strength in the marketplace.
These remarks are offered to provide the investment community with additional background on CRA’s financial results prior to the start of the conference call.

The safe asset potential of EU-issued bonds

Retrieved on:

Saturday, January 21, 2023

The lack of euro-denominated safe assets and the fragmentation of the market are problematic.

Key Points:

The lack of euro-denominated safe assets and the fragmentation of the market are problematic.
In the absence of a supranational euro-denominated safe asset, a flight to safety would entail capital flowing out of vulnerable countries and into safe havens.
Both initiatives were proposed in the context of the EU’s response to the recession in the wake of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
As of December 2021, the amount of outstanding EU bonds had grown to €215 billion in total.
The first SURE bonds were issued in October 2020, while the first NGEU bonds were issued in June 2021.
By 2028 NGEU volumes are foreseen to reach €800 billion, more than twelve times the level in December 2021.
Including the approved funding for other smaller programmes, the total available amount of EU bonds is set to exceed €1 trillion by 2028.
This stability of EU yield spreads does not mean that EU bonds will automatically become a supranational euro-denominated safe asset.
A safe asset is traded in liquid markets.
Market liquidity ensures that investors can sell their asset at any time without causing a major change in the market price.
(2022) we also argue that a safe asset’s market liquidity should be sufficiently high to accommodate central banks’ monetary policy operations.
Finally, the perception of EU bonds as safe assets also hinges on the continuation of their favourable regulatory treatment.
For such an instrument to be viable, a deep and liquid repo market would need to evolve first.

Low rates and bank stability: the risk of a tipping point

Retrieved on:

Friday, November 11, 2022

This has spurred academic and policy discussions about the economic implications of such low rates for the banking sector.

Key Points:

This has spurred academic and policy discussions about the economic implications of such low rates for the banking sector.
It develops a model closely based on Allen and Gale (1998) and shows the existence of a critical policy rate level, dubbed the tipping point.
Past the tipping point, an interest rate cut has a negative net effect on bank capital and may indeed result in bank insolvency.
From the model, we learn which bank characteristics matter for the tipping point and how they affect it.
Using these theoretical results, we can use data on banks to quantify the tipping point.
To discuss bank solvency, we need to understand what constitutes the assets of a bank from an economic point of view.
A banks deposit franchise, which is generally not capitalised on bank balance sheets, is also a relevant bank asset.
With this concept of solvency in mind, the question becomes: what is the effect of a low policy rate on bank assets?
Past the tipping point, the deposit-franchise effect dominates and a policy rate cut hurts bank solvency.
Our observed value for average bank asset maturity (4.5 years) implies that a 0.55% policy rate is the tipping point.
[4]
More work is required to obtain a sound quantification of the tipping point, also for the euro area.

Bank leverage constraints and bond market illiquidity during the COVID-19 crisis

Retrieved on:

Friday, November 11, 2022

One such factor is that of dealer bank balance sheet constraints due to leverage ratio regulation (see e.g.

Key Points:

One such factor is that of dealer bank balance sheet constraints due to leverage ratio regulation (see e.g.
Leverage ratio regulation requires banks to hold capital against all on- and off- balance sheet exposures, regardless of their risk.
Less market-making by banks can manifest itself in market illiquidity, particularly during stress episodes (Bao, OHara and Zhou (2018) and Dick-Nielsen and Rossi (2019)).
[2]
In Breckenfelder and Ivashina (2021), we provide an empirical perspective to answer the following question: did bank leverage constraints amplify bond market illiquidity during the March 2020 crisis?
To document the above dynamics, our analysis links mutual funds and their bond holdings to dealer banks and their leverage constraints.
We measure bank balance sheet constraints by looking at the dealer banks distance to the regulatory leverage constraint.
This implies that liquid bond holdings decline by 5.5% (=100*1.27/22.97) more for funds with exposure to bank balance sheet constraints.
We compare the shift in liquidity for the same bond two years before and two years after the leverage ratio first had to be reported to bank supervisors.
This result is robust to several ways of identifying a dealer bank in the data, and to constructing bank balance sheet constraints at the bond level.
This helps us to make sure that bond liquidity and the banks constraints are not trivially correlated in the country-level analysis.
Impact of the leverage ratio on bond market liquidity
Note: The chart shows the main regression result of the impact of leverage ratio regulation on corporate bond market liquidity.
We started off by asking to what extent bank balance sheet constraints due to the leverage ratio had added to the mutual fund instability and sell-off pressures.

Europe's growing league of small corporate bond issuers: new players, different game dynamics

Retrieved on:

Friday, November 11, 2022

In the eurozone since 2008, aggregate market financing has been growing significantly faster than bank lending.

Key Points:

In the eurozone since 2008, aggregate market financing has been growing significantly faster than bank lending.
Policymakers have supported the increase in bond financing as it can help insulate firms from shocks to the banking sector by diversifying sources of funds.
These new players are considered key to achieving a transition from a largely bank-based system towards more capital market funding.
To this end, in Darmouni and Papoutsi (2022), we have built a large panel dataset, using two decades of micro-data.
We have used this to study the European corporate bond markets new players: smaller, private, and unrated issuers that have entered the market in recent years.
This is important because, while these new issuers embody the shift towards increased capital market funding, they might be "invisible" in aggregate bond market volume or spreads.
While bank loans still account for the largest share of corporate debt, euro area firms have increasingly resorted to bond financing, especially following the global financial crisis of 2008-09.
This is justified by the number of firms entering the bond market.
In March 2020, at the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, European corporate bond markets were thrown into turmoil.
However, our study paints a different picture: it seems that the pullback of bond investors was primarily aimed at the largest, rated issuers.
Overall, our paper suggests that the new players in the growing minor league of the European bond market are largely disconnected from the more established, top-division players and still heavily bank-dependent.
First, if we rely entirely on aggregate bond market indicators, we might not pick up on what is happening with smaller issuers.
Third, interventions aimed at stimulating the bond market might have limited impact on smaller issuers relative to larger, investment grade firms.
Overall, looking at European corporate bond markets through the lens of firm-level data reveals striking differences between the major and minor leagues.

Saudi Arabia's Fastest Woman Retains Title as She Wins Gold at the Saudi Games

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Monday, November 7, 2022

World Athletics Championships, Athlete, Gold, Kingdom, Dream, Tokyo Olympics, Economics, Achievement, Bain, Heart, Gold medal, Columbia University, Financial economics, Female

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Nov. 7, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Saudi sprinter, Yasmeen Al-Dabbagh holds on to her title as Saudi Arabia's fastest woman, as she wins the Gold Medal in the 100 meter sprint at the Saudi Games.

Key Points:

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Nov. 7, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Saudi sprinter, Yasmeen Al-Dabbagh holds on to her title as Saudi Arabia's fastest woman, as she wins the Gold Medal in the 100 meter sprint at the Saudi Games.
She also took part in the 18th World Athletics Championship held in Eugene, Oregon earlier this year.
Yasmeen holds the title as the fastest woman in Saudi Arabia when she broke the national record for the females 100 meter sprint.
Commenting on her achievement at the Saudi Games, Yasmeen said, "The Saudi Games has been an experience of lifetime and a dream come true.

Saudi Arabia's Fastest Woman Retains Title as She Wins Gold at the Saudi Games

Retrieved on:

Monday, November 7, 2022

World Athletics Championships, Athlete, Gold, Kingdom, Dream, Tokyo Olympics, Economics, Achievement, Bain, Heart, Multimedia, Gold medal, Columbia University, Financial economics, Female

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Nov. 7, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Saudi sprinter, Yasmeen Al-Dabbagh holds on to her title as Saudi Arabia's fastest woman, as she wins the Gold Medal in the 100 meter sprint at the Saudi Games.

Key Points:

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Nov. 7, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Saudi sprinter, Yasmeen Al-Dabbagh holds on to her title as Saudi Arabia's fastest woman, as she wins the Gold Medal in the 100 meter sprint at the Saudi Games.
She also took part in the 18th World Athletics Championship held in Eugene, Oregon earlier this year.
Yasmeen holds the title as the fastest woman in Saudi Arabia when she broke the national record for the females 100 meter sprint.
Commenting on her achievement at the Saudi Games, Yasmeen said, "The Saudi Games has been an experience of lifetime and a dream come true.

The Halifax Group Promotes Amit Swaroop to Principal

Retrieved on:

Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Beta Gamma Sigma, Economics, MBA, Investment, University, Financial economics, Kellogg School, SVKM's NMIMS, Northwestern Alumni Association, Health, BA, Barclays Investment Bank, University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Social science, Orangetheory Fitness, H.I.G. Capital, Management, Northwestern University

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Halifax Group ("Halifax"), a leading private equity firm that partners with management to invest in entrepreneurial companies, announced today that it has promoted Amit Swaroop to Principal from Vice President.

Key Points:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Halifax Group ("Halifax"), a leading private equity firm that partners with management to invest in entrepreneurial companies, announced today that it has promoted Amit Swaroop to Principal from Vice President.
Mr. Swaroop, who is based in Washington, D.C., is responsible for identifying, evaluating, and executing investments, as well as supporting portfolio companies.
"We are proud to recognize Amit and his contributions to Halifax," said Scott Plumridge, Halifax Managing Partner.
"Amit is the consummate professional and team player, and we are grateful for his tireless commitment to the Halifax mission."