Elephantstrunk

Sun 10/09/2006 14:42

I hope this is a teaser for something else. Picture taken on Southwark Street London.
[Update] Also seen here. I’m sure I’m being manipulated. It looks to expensive to be really meant.

Brad DeLong’s Semi-Daily Journal: Marginal Notes on Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas’s Presentation of Golosov, Tsyviniski, and Werning
Before it rolls off the front page. Here is the paper. Working lunches. Golosov and Tsyvinski. Responses from, in the blue corner (British sense), Mr. Optimal Taxation and in the red corner, Mr. Overlapping Generations.

Longevity forecasts in pensions ‘too low’ reports the FT. But why would they be any other way? The higher the estimate, the more the actuary’s employer or client must put into the pension fund. Same goes for equity allocations and actuarial valuation techniques.

Goldman moves in on pensions
More interesting, not least because it is more visible is the Oliver Hemsley/Mark Wood vehicle Paternoster described here. Such moves are clearly of a piece with suggestions of a market in pension obligations. I don’t understand how this is supposed to work. If companies want to eliminate pension liability risk they […]

RGE - Stiglitz: Abolish GDP!
Joe Stiglitz is having fun. A good idea, or better yet remember that GDP != the good. Is the availability of time series for an alternative really critical?