In 2021, we launched the Global Investment Opportunities (GIO) mandates based on our proprietary factor investing approach. The strategic investments based on the insightful prediction of a surge in inflation resulted in a strong absolute and relative performance for the year.
Severing economic relationships and inflicting economic pain on Russia makes sense in war but is very costly also for the countries imposing the sanctions. Mr Putin's invasion of Ukraine is unlikely to end soon, and we are not going to read an Instagram post from the Kremlin.
How can we learn from the future? What if we are all wrong? The quality of our decisions can be improved, and our forecasting skills can be trained in an uncertain world. The value of imagining alternative futures is in the process of questioning assumptions and common mental models, and in preparing for uncertain but conceivable futures.
How can we meaningfully compare welfare across time and countries? Individual memories are subject to fading, and cultural values change in time, making it difficult to compare well-being over the past few decades.
Massive retirement, safety concerns, generous government benefits and taking care of own family explain why millions of Americans have been leaving the workforce. This suggests that wage increases may not bring enough workers to hiring companies. With tight labour markets and high inflation, we expect the Fed to start raising interest rates already in 2022.
There is no doubt in the scientific community and increasingly in the general public that climate change is a real and direct consequence of human activity. Climate change threatens, in some extreme scenarios, to bring us back to Stone Age living standards, according to William D. Nordhaus, the inventor of the modern economics of climate change.
