Thoughts on this week's World Economic Forum in Davos

Like many around the world, I have been following this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. As I described in a previous blog post, lots of pressing issues are discussed among the leading policymakers from around the world. I mentioned the key points to this year's meeting and it includes many of the pressing issues that we as a world have to face today. Here is the link to the key moments that had happened during this year's World Economic Forum. From what I gather, this year is the year where a combination of low energy prices, terrorism, growing income inequality and a looming economic malaise surround the world at large. I believe the people at this particular conference talked about some of these pertinent issues and they have overall tackled some of the more pressing issues. These issues are very indeed alarming and I believe some of these issues can be tackled without the "action" that some of the conference attendees have come up with.

Thoughts on the key points of the yearly conference:

1. Reduce inequality, but to promote growth
The most pressing issue around the world is the growing inequality that has been prominent in world headlines and in numerous discussions between economists. As Thomas Piketty's book has reached its popularity around the world, numerous other economists and many politicians around the world has mentioned that this was a huge issue that needed to be tackled. There have been tremendous amounts of press coverage in the last couple of years towards this particular subject and the people at the forum have talked about various ways to tackle this pressing issue. Sustainable growth is something that the people at the forum have talked about as a possible resolution to the most critical issue presented at this particular conference. I believe that while it is possible to reduce inequality through promoting growth, it is also important to consider other possible solutions such as structural reform of key institutions and of how certain private institutions could function within the confines of society. It's interesting to note that while some solutions are offered, I believe there should be more radical solutions such as that posited by Piketty's Capital in the Twenty First Century than the more conservative ones mentioned at the forum.

Here are a couple of video links to certain conversations at the forum that concern this particular problematic issue and other related issues: The World Economic Outlook, IMF Director Christine Lagarde's Address, Issue Briefing: Income Inequality, BBC World Debate.


2. Europe's Quantitative Easing program
As announced in a previous post, the European Central Bank has announced a new massive quantitative easing program of over a trillion that will be pumped into the European economy. There has been a lot of discussion over this particular policy decision by the panel discussants at the forum, by top economists such as Robert J. Shiller, by the top bloggers and with some of my friends. As mentioned in a previous blog posts, there has been a tremendous controversy over this particular issue, with numerous speakers giving their particular opinion on the particular issue. Here's a list of quotes by key forum speakers and here's a video on the discussion of the effects of quantitative easing in the United States and beyond. Here are two contrasting opinion articles on the effects of quantitative easing, one from Professor Jeffrey Sachs and another from Stephen S. Roach. With this particular problem that has already been implemented by Mario Draghi, I believe it is important for them to promote these particular policies, even though there might be strong negative consequences that come from this round of quantitative easing, such as a combination of weak growth and of higher inflation that might come from this monetary policy, but we will have to wait and see.


3. Energy Prices
I think the recent drop in energy prices have been affecting everyone domestically here in the United States and globally around the world. Energy consumers have been given a break in the recent drop in petroleum prices, but energy producers have hit a wall. Countries such as Russia, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela and others will suffer tremendously in the coming years, which might contribute to significant political instability. I mentioned in an earlier blog post about Russia's internal and external problems, which I think will compound in the coming years. This will see a surge in Russia's more aggressive and nationalistic foreign policy. The oil producers will see significant domestic problems, which were already tremendous in volume, expand rapidly throughout the Middle East. We could see trouble in the coming years with this drop in oil prices because it cause an acute global recession.

Here's a video of an interesting panel discussion during the conference that concerned energy.

4. Market Volatility
The last important point that the people at the forum have made concerned with the issue of market volatility. The markets have been very volatile over the years since the Great Recession with the recent drop in energy prices and the global stock market rallies been at the forefront of discussion.

Here are a couple of discussions that deal with this pressing issue: Volatility as the New Normal, The New Growth Context.

Other Important Points:

1. China
A couple of key panel discussants talked about China at this year's conference, which included the Chinese Premier, Li Keqiang. As mentioned in a previous paragraph, he was one of the first to talk about the income inequality issue in an address to the Forum. China has tremendous challenges when it comes to its economy and its new role in the global economy, but I think it can be a tremendous benefit to the world to more fully incorporate a nation of China's size into the world economy. Here are two videos that address the issue of China in the world: Video of Premier Li Keqiang's Speech and China's Impact as a Global Investor.

2. Al Gore and Climate Change
There was a discussion by Al Gore and another discussion throughout the 4 day conference that concerned the topic of climate change. As many have watched Al Gore's documentary and other documentaries that have talked about the pressing issue of climate change, we can conclude that this is one of the more important topics talked among conference participants and conference followers. These two discussions presents the views of many that concerned this particular issue, with several others chiming in on the discussion. I think there are a tremendous number of economic issues that we will run into if we implement Al Gore's plan to combat climate change. I believe the biggest issue has to deal with the continued development of emerging economies and with the issue of lifting billions of individuals, while simultaneously counteracting this increase in carbon emissions and in pollution.

3. Conflict zones
There were a tremendous number of discussions that dealt with the increasing number of conflicts that have developed in the world, which include a variety of countries. This included actual military conflicts such as those in Syria, Ukraine and Iraq along with competing geopolitical games that larger powers are always conducting. The key discussion in this particular subject is that of the development of a new multi-polar world, which always had potentially dangerous consequences. This also leads us to the question of the viability of the democratic institutions, which has been the landmark of industrialized Western countries such as the United States. Is the end of history as describe by Francis Fukuyama not possible or is it a new chapter in history? We will have to wait and find out what unfolds in the coming years.

There were a lot of great panel discussions over the course of these 4 days in Davos. Despite the amount of content that was covered at this year's edition of the World Economic Forum, there are many economic (and political) issues that are still yet to be discussed. With the interesting economic and monetary situation unfolding in Europe and in Greece, we will have to wait and see what unravels.

February Reading List

I have decided to post my February reading list in the midst of this gargantuan snowstorm of epic proportions.

Econ books:

1. Jeffrey Sachs - The End of Poverty

2. Paul Ormerod - The Death of Economics

Non-Econ books:

1. Marcus Aurelius - Meditations
2. Robert Nozick - Anarchy, State and Utopia (Started reading this book last month)

Due to the lack of adequate snow travel accommodations, I will most likely be home tomorrow. It has been a very busy month on my end and I didn't necessarily have time to finish all of my readings, so this is the reason why the reading list for this month is much shorter than the previous several months.

Beginning of escalation of a currency war between Europe and the rest of the world?

The European Central Bank's upcoming quantitative easing plans has been headline business news for the last couple of days, but today the ECB has finally announced the measures that they will pursue in the coming months. has decided to pursue very aggressive easing policies that will surely affect the markets for the coming years. In pursuing an aggressive bond repurchasing program of upwards of 60 million euros per month, the ECB hopes to curb deflation that has hit the European Union's economy. In the introduction statement to the press conference, the President of the ECB, Mario Draghi, has decided to explain these particular measures. Draghi mentioned that the ECB wants this process to continue until they can reach the benchmark inflation rate of 2% in the European Union and that these measures will continue until the end of 2016. To fully understand the full consequences of this program, we can relay to my last article where I had mentioned the massive expansion of the Chinese M2 money supply. I think it will create a tsunami flood of cheap money that will flood the markets, which will further decrease the value of the euro versus other major currencies. Here are several charts that feature euro versus the two other major currencies.

Euro to US Dollar

Euro to Chinese Yuan

As we can see from this chart, the euro has fallen tremendously in the last year or so, from various other factors such as a weak European economy. The bond repurchasing program might have an interesting effect on its currency competitors. It might led to similar actions by the United States, by China, by the United Kingdom and other major central banks in order to promote export/import competitiveness. The start of Abenomics in Japan and this move by the European Central Bank has led to talk of more quantitative easing and more currency devaluations. I believe that the currency wars have just started between the major nations, while it will also lead to more people placing their assets into safe havens such as Switzerland. The Swiss might think twice about de-pegging their currency once again against these devalued major currencies...

(Here's a good and short summary article on the history of recent Swiss monetary history.)

Interesting article on the Chinese money supply and first day of the annual Davos World Economic Forum

I was just scrolling through the several blogs that I read every single day, which include the Marginal Revolution. I have found a very interesting article on the Chinese money supply that Tyler Cowen had posted as a blog earlier in the wee mornings on the first day of the annual World Economic Forum in Davos. The article was quite striking for two reasons:

1. The first reason was the point about the Chinese M2 money supply being 70% higher than the "rather tight" US money supply despite the much "smaller" size of the real Chinese economy versus the US economy. This is particularly interesting as it just shows how the much maligned Federal Reserve is actually more fiscally tight and conservative than their much more activist Chinese Central Bank counterparts. From what I gather, this might also be a false indicator of what the actual GDP growth in China is.

2. This is where my second reason for writing this thought bubble that I had about reading this particular blog that Tyler had written. From the Financial Times article that Tyler had posted in this blog entry, written by Derek Scissors from the American Enterprise Institute, we can conjecture that the Chinese economy will face an extremely rocky road in the coming years. It's a pretty cool article to check out, especially with his particularly interesting views. The Chinese economy might be in trouble in the short term, but I think it might still go pretty smoothly in the longer term.

It is also the first day of the annual Davos World Economic Forum! For those who are not familiar: The Davos meeting is the annual gathering of some of the world's most powerful economic elites, where they gather to discuss some of the pressing challenges that our world faces. It has been around for 40 something years and here are two articles that are worth reading about the contents of the meeting.
2012 New Yorker article 
2015 The Guardian Opinion article

Interesting topics that these powerful people will discuss over the course of the meeting include increasing political instability, global income inequality, climate change, oil and their most pressing topic: financial instability! As many of us know about the rocky world economy and they will be discussing the financial instability that the world is currently/going to face in the coming years. The videos on the earlier World Economic Forum link that I had posted will hopefully interest those that might be interested in the World Economic Forum!

It's been a while since I've posted a blog entry, mainly because of other more urgent tasks that I had to handle this week. I will be posting lots of entries the next couple of days, as it is the exciting week of the World Economic Forum! I will be watching/following the events that unfold in the lovely Swiss resort city of Davos, Switzerland, but also I will be posting another blog post on thoughts about a rather marginal economic theory that I think has some relevance in the current economic turmoil.

Some Ideas on the possible application of Game Theory in exploring the lifting of the US embargo on Cuba

As I mentioned in a past blog post, there has been a lot of banter about the current restoration of diplomatic relations with the nation of Cuba. This post concerns something else that has been on my mind the last couple of weeks. It is probable application of game theory towards the field of international economics. Game theory is already used most intensively in several branches of economics (industrial organization, behavioral economics, information economics, political economy), but there's a lack of full application in other branches of economics such as international economics.

I have been intensely reading parts of a book by the late Stanford economics professor, John McMillan. The book goes through the lack of game theory application, despite obvious game theory-like applications within international economics. This book had given me several ideas on the possible wider probable usage of certain mathematical games within the fixture of game theory in order to be applied in the inner-working of international economics, especially in international trade. By utilizing the trade between Cuba and US as a possible example, we could possibly apply game theory to the increased link between the two countries versus the chief adversary of the US in Russia. Here are some possible applications that can be utilized, which also includes some articles on similar topics that I found, which had given me the impetus to write this article.

1. Embargo or No embargo payoff
By utilizing the simple stochastic multi-player games, we can determine payoff costs by comparing the embargo or no embargo payoff between the two different multi-layer outcomes of (Embargo) or (No Embargo). This is a rather simplistic explanation of such a multi-player stochastic game that we will need to construct in order to measure the payoffs in of the each quadrants, but there might be a need to construct algorithmic stochastic multi-player games. This need is not just based on the complexity of the variables, but also on the need to have more well-defined variables, especially when it comes to find the advantages to each variable. To further explore the information, you need to perhaps construct a more complex model, with the help of computer software, in which there needs to be a various number of factors included. These factors include the trade flow variables, the number of zero-sum games and cooperative games performed in each of the variables, etc. There needs to be a construction of a model that is complex enough to find the actual numbers of payoffs for each of the two factors, but I'm sure it'll indicate that the

This article by Professor Dobre Claudia Ioana strikes to me as an interesting implication of certain principles within the mathematical realm of game theory to something found in international economics -> international trade. It also has given me some impetus in coming up with the idea of implicating the methods of game theory in dealing with rather complex trade relations between the countries of Cuba and the US. By utilizing the basic idea around Part 2.3 of the article, we can calculate for the strategic trading policies that could potentially benefit both Cuba and the US. In this simplified case, we can solve for the Nash equilibrium within the confines of a non-cooperative game, the payoffs are as follows:

1. If Cuba does want to open up, the US wants to retain the trade embargo.
2. If Cuba does want to open up, the US removes the trade embargo, the US places favorable conditions for Cuba.
3. If Cuba does want to open up, the US removes the trade embargo and the US places unfavorable conditions for Cuba.

This is just the basic approach to the multi-faceted approach to determining the payoffs and the Nash equilibrium for this particular international trade situation. These are just some ideas of a possible design that could be brought forth and I'm still currently thinking about the various formulas and variables that could be realized to achieve a full and sustained approach to developing a solution to the problem.

2. Extensive Form Games
Another factor that should possibly be calculated is how the United States has to deal with how Russia responds to Cuba and vice versa. This particular situation can be characterized as a multi-player game where we need to figure out the payoffs and similar equilibriums. In this situation, we could potentially utilize extensive form games to factor each of the important factors between these three competing nations. It might be hard to characterize entire large economies as a single one micro body/ individual, but I believe that it can be surmised that all of these countries act as one single body.

The first series of extensive form games you could possibly calculate for certain payoffs between US-Cuba and between Russia-Cuba. By factoring the payoff decision-making numbers of this series of extensive form games (factors including certain firms, certain economic sectors, certain competitive indicators), you could potentially compare the numerical payoffs in each of these insistences.

After this, you could potentially utilize a second series of extensive form games to calculate the numerical payoff results that are resultant from the previous extensive form game. The numerical payoffs, along with certain control variables such as competitive advantage, gains/losses from trade and other indicators, are then calculated to determine whether or not the options are valid through the applicability of such a model.

The calculated effects on Cuba's trade policies in certain segments of their economy and the US economy could potentially benefit the US tremendously in that particular arena versus what the main US adversary has, which is Russia. By calculating for the potential benefits/pitfalls from them, one could be derive a simulation for a potential new international trade model.

(An introduction to Extensive Form games is found here, written/presented by Jonathan Levin, the winner of the 2011 John Bates Clark medal. These explanations are mostly meant for his field of concentration, which is industrial organization, but I think it gives a good idea of what extensive form games are.)

I believe the ideas that Professor Dobre Claudia Ioana and the late Professor John McMillan brought up offers a lot of hope for game theory to become a great potential tool for international economics/international trade researchers to continue to build onto. There could be lots of different ways to utilize these tools in its eventual development into useful tools for analyses of complex international trade situations/conflicts, such as that in this particular situation.

Thoughts on the Thomas Piketty event

As I mentioned in my last post, I had the great pleasure of attending the Thomas Piketty event at this year's American Economic Association annual meeting. I have been reading his latest work, Capital in the Twenty First Century, which has been published to both great acclaim and great criticism. Ever since Thomas Piketty published the book, it has sent shockwaves through the current economic establishment with many rebuttal books written to in response to the ideas that Professor Piketty had presented. (The number of rebuttal books range from sort articles to large pamphlets, if you look at the Amazon website, you'll be able to find several) Within the confines of the academia and outside of it, there has been almost a numinous reception of his work. For the popularity within the outside world, it has created numerous tractable differentials in opinions, from those who love it and those who hate it. Some people have praised it and bought the book in record numbers. There have been many prominent economists who have published great books and papers, but I believe the response that Professor Piketty's book has had a ripple-like effect on the consciousness of the entire economic community. I personally enjoyed this book immensely, even though I don't necessarily agree with much of its content. In this article, I will try to dissect the 2 hour conference and throw in my thoughts about the event itself.

The Thomas Piketty event at the AEA meeting was an immense occasion where the room was packed to capacity, with perhaps about a hundred people extra standing at the sides to witness the presentation featuring other prominent economists such as Greg Mankiw. David Weill, Professor of Economics at Brown University, gave an approving observation and analysis of Thomas Piketty' ideas that were presented in Capital. Based Professor Weill's observations, we can see the wealth of knowledge that the 700+ page book has to offer for both economic researchers and wider audiences beyond. Professor Alan J. Auerbach and Dr. Kevin Hassett had different ideas when it came to Piketty's book. Despite their disagreements with much of Thomas Piketty's theories, they are very impressed by the depth of its analyses, but they feel like certain things about the book were perhaps too unrealistic in terms of its application, especially in tax reform and other related things.

Professor Greg Mankiw, Chair of Harvard University Department of Economics, gave the next lecture on his interpretation of the book and he then gave a thorough lambasting of Piketty's book. He labeled Piketty's book as resorting to the simple promotion of egalitarian policies that lead both of the rich and the poor to sink into destitution. This does not come as a surprise to many economists and voracious readers who knows about Professor Mankiw's defense of the top one percent in his recent article, Defending the One Percent, which was published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. During this time, there were certain people that heckled Professor Mankiw, with loud cheers of approval on one side of the economic spectrum coupled with disapproving shrugs on the other side. Personally, I am impartial to the views of both conflicting sides as there is much to derive from the analyses on both viewpoints. What's interesting about Professor Mankiw's conclusion is that r>g is not the problem, but that r<g is the problem! This is a particular interesting observation as I believe that Thomas Piketty has the correct observation, but perhaps not the correct response to such taxing issues. (For those interested in a good opinion article that I had read last year, please refer to Tim Worstall's Forbes article.)The excitement in the room grew with the anticipation of Thomas Piketty's talk on the ideas that he had promoted in his book.

Professor Thomas Piketty, Chair of the Paris School of Economics, gave a simple explanation of his 700+ page book, which has reached the absolute apex of its acclaim. It has been on the front page of newspapers, best-selling book lists and other similar journals, with raising him into the public spotlight beyond what is normal for economists. In this presentation, Professor Piketty presented the basic theories in his book with a special focus on r>g in trying to resolve the huge issues that the world faces today. He talked about how its entirely applicable to the study of long-run wealth inequality versus labor income equality, which you cannot utilize r>g to solve. The other point that I derived from his work was the basic model that he had presented, with a strong focus on the reinforcement of more democratic institutions with the certain mechanisms surrounding income and wealth. He postulated that the serious problem of inequality should be tackled through a progressive wealth tax, escalating at each level, which is quite unrealistic in my mind.  I have yet to complete the many sections of the book, as I've only skimmed parts of it, but it'll be exciting to write my second thoughts on the book after going through each section in more detail.

Overall, this session was one of the most exhilarating sessions I've been to in Boston and I've been to a couple of very heated Israel-Palestine conferences. The session was followed by an extremely tense question and answer session, with a particular individual launching a fallacious tirade at both Professor Mankiw and Professor Piketty. I also had the privilege of speaking with Professor Thomas Piketty briefly after the event and I hope to have better questions prepared for him next time.

2015 American Economic Association Meeting

Yesterday was the final day of the annual American Economic Association Annual Meeting. It was definitely a productive couple of days, where I got surrounded by some of the greatest economic minds in the world such as Robert Shiller, Jean Tirole, Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Piketty, William Nordhaus, Raj Chetty and others. I also managed to meet quite a large number of economists, young and old, which was particularly exciting. There were many things that have happened during this long weekend and here are some of the highlights of the last couple of days.

Day 1- Saturday
The first event I saw was the most jam-packed event that I've ever witnessed, complete with rockstar adulation for Thomas Piketty, who had just written a best-selling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century. It was a pretty cool event, coupled with a Sheraton Boston room filled to capacity and complete with hecklers. I will be writing an entire article on the Piketty event, as it was the most memorable event, alongside the very heated Summers/Mankiw event at the annual conference. From what I noticed, there were a substantial amount of protesters at these headline events, which ranged from student protesters to people with posters and signs. There's an interesting article on the Washington Post that concerns this interesting phenomenon.

The next couple of events that I had attended was much more lower key than the Piketty event, with topics ranging from monetary policy to financial markets to certain presentations on the effects of Chinese urbanization in housing markets. Because of the brevity of these presentations, the models and the statistical data that the presenters were not provided in full detail, but they gave a basic run-down of the information of the articles that they had written previously.

The second most interesting session that I attended during the entire weekend was a panel discussion of the economics of secular stagnation, which featured prominent economists such as Robert Gordon, Lawrence Summers, William Nordhaus and Greg Mankiw. This discussion was extremely heated, with the particular different views especially obvious between the Harvard economists- Professor Mankiw and Professor Summers. Like the Piketty event, there were hecklers and arguments between the two sets of people with sharply, opposing views. This debate was particular interesting to compare the views of those like Professor Summers, that see a continued economic stagnation in advanced industrialized economies and those like Professor Mankiw who are optimistic about its longer term recovery. Based on the information that both sides have advanced have, it set up the mood for a continued discussion throughout the rest of this year. I believe that the recovery might not last long due to the continued drop in oil prices, which might cause an acute financial crisis somewhere else in the world. The most interesting observation that I had conjectured from this particular event was the electric environment that this event had caused and the discussion continued after the event had ended in the hallways and on social media. Many prominent newspapers featured this event, including this article by the Washington Post.

The day ended with Raj Chetty giving the annual Richard T. Ely lecture, which he talked about his recent works in his field of Behavioral economics, even though he doesn't want people to relate his research in that particular way. Overall, it was interesting to see how we can measure behavior and how it connects to coming up with public policy, especially around the results of his research on EITC recipients. Here is the link to his PowerPoint presentation and the link to the video of the electrifying presentation.

Day 2- Sunday
After a large snowstorm from the previous night, I found out that many of the Sunday speakers that I had expected to see, such as Jeff Sachs, Justin Yifu Lin and several others, had canceled their appearance at the annual meeting. The most interesting event I went to during the afternoon was concerning Russia-US relations, of which I had expected to hear Jeff Sachs' new perspective on the current relations. The new reconstituted panel of experts included a couple of policy experts, which included the Harvard Kennedy School Professor, Stephen Walt. As described in my previous articles on this blog, all of them agreed that the new Cold War was counter-productive and based on finance/economics. The panels of experts agreed it was more productive to engage constructively with Russia, which unfortunately means to ignore the needs of countries such as Ukraine and Georgia to be in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The Annual Presidential Address was given by William Nordhaus, who is well known for his work on environmental economics. It was a decently written piece that concerned the Economics of Global Warming. Here's the link to a similar presentation online with the PowerPoint slides listed here. I don't necessarily agree with the point of view that Professor Nordhaus was trying to present, but overall the presentation was done in an impeccable fashion. Also, congratulations to Professor Matthew Gentzkow of the University of Chicago for winning the annual John Bates Clark Medal for being the best economist under the age of 40!

After conversing with several older friends of mine who also happened to be at the meeting, I went to the Annual AEA Humor event, which was hosted by Jodi Beggs, who handles to be a Lecturer at my undergraduate alum mater of Northeastern University. I thought the funniest segment was the "lecture" conducted by Zach Weinersmith on the his particular theory on maximizing the social welfare of the top decile.

Day 3- Monday
The final day of the AEA meeting featured three events, of which two were on macroeconomics and one was on neuroeconomics. The first event on Neuroeconomics had featured two of the most interesting and unique presentations, of one was about the rather ironic Chinese obsession with slot machines and gambling while another was on NFL players' salary/consumption patterns.

The second event was presided by the Chief Economist of the IMF, Olivier Blanchard and featured Nobel Laureate, Joseph Stiglitz. I was quite fascinated by Stiglitz' other research and the presentation of his paper on pseudo-wealth truly fascinated me. The paper argues for the theory that displays certain aggregate demand qualities, which is the creation of appeared wealth for some, which leads to improper amounts of resource allocation in consumer spending. After this effect disappears before a prolonged period of time, there is a main crisis in the dramatic fall in consumption. Overall, the details and the model that Professor Stiglitz puts forward is quite fascinating and presents something entirely new, which is expected from Professor Stiglitz.

The three and final event of the AEA meeting was curated by the newly crowned Nobel Laureate, Jean Tirole, and it pertained to financial constraints and macroeconomic risk. Most of these speakers were from Europe and investigated data that pertained to Europe's situation. Going towards a more complete Eurozone monetary integration is where the European Union is heading towards and these presentations presented certain fixes/problems/solutions. My favorite two presentations were the ones by the researchers from the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (GSE) and Jean Tirole. The presentation by the two researchers from the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (GSE) featured interesting models that described the crowding-in and crowding-out processes in managing credit bubbles. I enjoyed their models, so I did some research and I found their research article online. It's quite in depth, but I think the models and the ideas are pretty straightforward. Jean Tirole's presentation was on the current Eurozone monetary situation, which is unraveling. He presented his theory on how to deal with this particular situation, which explains the rationale and several mechanisms of how an Eurozone banking union could need to alter before it could be put in place. For those who are interested in the article, please feel free to read them here.

The 2015 American Economic Association meeting was overall a great experience, where I got to learn a lot about the field and I got to talk with some of the greatest economic minds in the world!