The End of American Economic Dominance. Will American Finance Follow Suit?

June 30, 2014

Just about everyone that follows politics and economics knows that businesses in the United States dominated the world economy in the 1980s and 1990s.  Really, American-based businesses have been king of the business world since World War II.  That dominance has loudly come to an end. Unsurprisingly, the end of American dominance of the world’s […]

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Why Are Venture Capitalists So Interested in Education?

June 16, 2014

Innovation in the education area may have a bright future after all, at least if one judges it by the exponential growth in venture capital interest. Overall, data out of Pitchbook indicate strong growth in deal activity and the total invested capital in U.S.-based education startups over the past ten years. Total invested capital has grown […]

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Is Politics Dominating Central Banks Now?

June 2, 2014

The practice of central banking involves a good deal of guesswork on behalf of economists.  When one combines economists’ guesswork with interested elected representatives, one gets a fascinating dynamic whereby there’s a constant push and pull on monetary policy.  There was a time, not long ago, when economists fiercely defended the idea of a politically […]

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How Has Financial Employment Performed Over the Past 11 Business Cycles?

May 19, 2014

Most everyone has seen the following chart of employment change from peak to peak for the past 11 business cycles. (Some analysts choose to ignore the 1943 recession for shock reasons, essentially making 2008 look the least appealing of them all.) The label for each line represents the year in which the recession started; the vertical […]

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The Story Liberals Don’t Want You to Hear

May 5, 2014

Since the onset of the economic crisis in late 2007, liberals and conservatives (and economists with like-minded leanings) have been ferociously debating two issues – inflation and debt.  On inflation, liberals generally argue that inflation wasn’t an issue.  By arguing such, liberals were able to claim that the best way to deal with the economic […]

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Private Equity and Carried Interest

April 21, 2014

Carried interest continues to be a topic of discussion among certain elected officials.  The Obama Administration’s 2015 budget recommendations included a proposal to tax gains from carried interest at the personal income tax rate as opposed to the current capital gains tax rate. If Congress went along with the Obama Administration’s tax increase proposal, the tax […]

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Is Financial Employment Correlated with High Minimum Wage Laws?

April 7, 2014

With minimum wage laws a topic of policy discussion recently, this article asks the question –is there a correlation between higher minimum wage rates and financial employment by state? The main theory is that states with financial centers may get pressure from the public to increase the minimum wage above what elected officials experience in […]

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Hours per Week and Annual Pay – Who is on Top?

March 24, 2014

Individuals in the private equity industry work a lot.  They also make a lot for those long hours. If one divided working individuals into 10 hour groups – meaning some percentage of individuals work 40 to 49 hours per week and some individuals work say 80 to 89 hours per week – which hour group […]

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When will Venture Capital Firms Move Away from California?

March 10, 2014

Since at least the 1980s, a large, disproportionate share of venture capital investments have been made in firms located in California. When will this trend come to an end? First, here is some background.  The following animated GIF shows venture capital investments by year by state since 1995 (a link to the interactive Tableau Public […]

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Where Did Successful VC-Backed Entrepreneurs Go To School?

February 24, 2014

If you were asked where the most venture capital backed entrepreneurs went to college, which universities would show up in your top five? As a guess, you would most likely put the Massachusetts Institute of Technology high, as well as perhaps Stanford, Harvard, and other Ivy League or high academic schools.  After all, that’s where […]

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