Category: Uncategorized

The Risk Map

The assessment of portfolio risk is on everyone’s mind at the moment.

In timely fashion, UCD host a seminar tomorrow on this topic.   The details are below:

The next seminar hosted by the Centre for Financial Markets (CFM) will take place tomorow, March 31 between 2-3.15pm at the Smurfit School of Business, Carysfort Avenue, UCD. The venue for the paper is Room C302.

The paper is to be given by Christophe Perignon (HEC) (www.hec.fr/perignon):
The Risk Map: A new Tool for Backtesting Value-at-Risk Models

Details of the seminar series and the paper are available here.

Were global imbalances a once off adjustment, and will they now come to an end?

These are some of the issues raised in this provocative piece by Pradhan and Taylor.

Why bother investing in Ireland?

I have been disappointed but not surprised by the lack of comment on Edgar Morgenroth’s  blog about the threat to introduce a low rate of corporation tax in Northern Ireland.

We are all well used to IDA shibboleths about the Republic of Ireland’s advantages other than the low Corporate Tax rate.  We are told about the modern infrastructure, the well educated labour force (sic), EU membership and the fact that the Republic of Ireland is English- speaking.  Northern Ireland has all of these as well as a dramatically lower cost base: we’ve even stopped killing each other in large numbers. 

The UK already has generous R&D incentives and intellectual property incentives are already trumped by other European countries such as the Netherlands. The Republic’s only remaining advantages may be its sovereign ability to skate close to the wind of tax haven status: relaxed rules on transfer pricing, absence of controlled foreign company laws, limited rules on thin capitalisation and its skill at negotiating double tax treaties.

Is that all the Republic has?  Surely, I’ve missed something!

Latest GDP/BOP data

The GDP release is here.

The BOP release is here.

2010 Q4 GDP

The CSO will release the initial estimate of 2010 Q4 GDP tomorrow at 11am.  The last quarter of 2010 saw the arrival of the troika, plus bad weather in December.  Any guesses for the numbers?