Some people are blaming the economic crisis on financial engineering and business school education. Similar to how the 1986 space shuttle disaster cannot be blamed on aerospace engineering, it is inaccurate to blame the crisis on technical know-how. Rather, the misuse of technology and poor judgment are to blame. Initial evidence about the current crisis suggests that executives at financial institutions did not deem risk assessments to be important. This suggests a lack of judgment, understanding, and training. As financial markets become more complex, it is becoming harder for conventional, two-year MBA programs to sufficiently train MBA candidates. But education beyond this level typically gets no support from the federal government, unlike other engineering fields. The Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts of Institute of Technology awarded only four PhDs in finance in 2007, similar to other top business schools. To foster greater expertise, it is important to offer scholarships in financial engineering that could be paid for by a small

It is a rare pleasure and honor for a former undergraduate student in Martin Shubik’s popular game theory classes at Yale University to be asked to write a review of his professor’s latest book, The Guidance of an Enterprise Economy, published by MIT Press in 2016. In contrast to the old saw in which “the student is now the master,” this volume confirms that the student is still the student and the master is—and always will be—the master.

Shubik, the world-renowned game theorist, and his co-author, Eric Smith, an impressive physicist cum biologist cum economist at the Santa Fe Institute, have undertaken an ambitious agenda to formulate a grand synthesis of the different levels of economic theory—financial, microeconomic, organizational, and macroeconomic—and reintroduce dynamics within the framework of general equilibrium (GE). They have written a fascinating, provocative, and occasionally frustrating volume that moves a much-neglected topic forward.

Capitalism is a powerful tool: By compressing enormous amounts of information regarding supply and demand into a single number—the market price—buyers and sellers are able to make remarkably intelligent decisions simply by engaging in self-interested behavior. But in a big-data world, where a supercomputer can fit into our pocket and a simple Internet search allows us to find every product under the Sun, do we still need it?

In Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data, Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Thomas Ramge argue that big data will transform our economies on a fundamental level. Money will become obsolete, they argue, replaced by metadata. Instead of a single market price for each commodity, sophisticated matching algorithms will use a bundle of specifications and personal preferences to select just the right product for you. Artificial intelligence powered by machine-learning techniques will relentlessly negotiate the best possible transaction on your behalf. Capital will still be important, they concede, but increasingly just for its signaling content. “Venture informers” might even replace venture capitalists.

The recent destructive outbreak of the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, that emerged from Wuhan, China, and rapidly spread to Europe and North America, demonstrates beyond doubt that emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) are a clear and present danger to the world and its economy. Uncontrolled outbreaks of EIDs can devastate populations around the globe, both in terms of lives lost and economic value destroyed. Emerging and re-emerging strains of infectious disease have become more diverse over time, and outbreaks have become more frequent. In 2006, Larry Brilliant stated that 90 percent of the epidemiologists in his confidence agreed that there would be a large pandemic—in which 1 billion people would sicken, 165 million would die, and the global economy would lose $1-3 trillion—within two generations. In 2020, this remarkable statement is playing out with each passing day.

The tenth anniversary of the disastrous weekend that nearly brought down the global financial system is fast approaching. But in many of the jurisdictions that were central to the crisis, financial regulations introduced in the aftermath, aimed at preventing a repeat, are now being rolled back. The pendulum of regulation is now swinging back towards fewer and looser restrictions – and if the past is any guide, a ramp-up in systemic risk exposures will be the result.

‘Fintech’ is transforming the financial sector at a pace that is now obvious even to the casual observer. We see this not only in daily headlines about initial coin offerings or financial applications of blockchain technology, but also in the daily experiences of the average consumer: paper cheques consigned forever to desk drawers, automatic currency conversions on a trip abroad, the rapid approval of an online loan – and most excitingly for some, personal investing.

August is typically when Wall Street goes to the beach, the mountains, or just home to recharge for a week or two. Many Europeans take the entire month off. But financial markets have a cruel knack of ruining holidays. As we lie in our hammocks this August, we might do well to recall a remarkable event that occurred, seemingly without warning, 11 years ago this month in the run-up to the financial crisis.

The increasing dominance of technology in daily lives is finally penetrating the financial industry as well. The growing popularity of algorithmic trading, mobile payment platforms and robo-advisers is just the beginning of the fintech revolution. But perhaps the most radical - and controversial - innovation in today's headlines is cryptocurrencies. Extreme volatility makes products an unreliable store of value - for now.

The information revolution has transformed everyday life for billions of people throughout the world. For example, according to mobile phone research group GSMA Intelligence, there are currently over 5 billion unique mobile phone subscribers, out of an estimated global population of 7.6 billion. This is the equivalent of a mobile phone for every person on the planet between the ages of 15 and 65.

In the past decade, financial industry excesses have been cited as the source of many ills afflicting economies and political systems in the West. But, if used responsibly, finance could help provide the cure for some of humanity’s most pressing problems – from cancer to fossil fuel depletion and climate change.