No less a thinker than Adam Smith suggested that the division of labor in society was dependent upon the existence of markets, or, as he puts it, upon man’s “propensity to barter, truck and exchange one thing for another.” This phrase was later to yield the concept of the Economic Man. In retrospect it can… Read More »
Fund managers should consider African markets such as Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania rather than chasing crowded emerging market trades elsewhere, economist Nouriel Roubini said. “It (Africa) is risky because there is less liquidity and the governance is not ideal. But in comparison to 10 years ago when there was civil strife and unstable governments,… Read More »
If you have been following the news, you know about the shake-up, the rescue and the proposal to buy off bad loans. Reuter’s report on the current state of the industry: Two of Nigeria’s nine rescued banks are in talks with foreign investors about recapitalisation but most of the others are more likely to be… Read More »
Financialization and Everyday Life The 14th Berlin Roundtables on Transnationality conducted by the Irmgard Coninx Foundation, the Social Science Research Centre Berlin and Humboldt-University Berlin, 25 – 29 June 2011 Topic The recent financial crisis has once more revealed the power financial markets hold over everyday life. The financial and especially the credit and loan… Read More »
The abstract of a paper of the same title: For the past decade, the U.S. economy has been driven not by industrial investment but by a real estate bubble. Although the United States may seem to be the leading example of industrial capitalism, its economy is no longer based mainly on investing in capital goods… Read More »
The Economist talks to China Europe Business School’s Africa Programme Director, Kwaku Atuahene-Gima, about the reason the Chinese business school decided to establish a branch in Ghana: CEIBS has been instrumental in developing the business talent that has helped China develop,…. The Europeans and Americans were the colonisers of Africa, but there was not much… Read More »
Delivered at Gresham College, London. The summary: Professor Niall Ferguson offers an evolutionary approach to financial history. He questions the impeding of ‘natural selection’ by keeping the financial dinosaurs alive through the life support of monetary injections: “without creative destruction, our economic system cannot be a healthy one.” The view that financial history could be… Read More »
Off to Basel tomorrow for an African Borderlands Research Network conference. As part of a panel on a comparative study of cross-border trade networks in Africa, I will be presenting a paper titled “Benin-Nigeria secondhand clothing cross-border trade in historical perspective”. The abstract: Today, Benin Republic is the main supplier of secondhand clothing to Nigeria,… Read More »
The Chinese market in fake European classical art is growing. Steadily. Something they bring to it? Industrial efficiency. The village of Dafen in southern China has become the centre of a big industry, with about 8,000 artists responsible for creating 60 per cent of the world’s oil paintings.
Considering that Rwanda witnessed one of the most appalling waves of barbarity in history just 16 years ago, when around 800,000 people were hacked to death in three months, the efficiency is extraordinary. So much has gone admirably right in terms of development. But a lot is going depressingly wrong in politics. Mr Kagame has… Read More »