Category Archives: Uncategorized

The 10th Anniversary of the Contrarian Prize

A couple of days ago I attended a debate on free speech for the 10th Anniversary of the Contrarian Prize. This prize, founded by Ali Miraj, recognises the independence and courage of British public figures who challenge the status quo. … Continue reading

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The impact of school closure on test scores

The great* Emily Oster tweeted yesterday that they got their article on the impact of school closures accepted in the American Economic Review: Insights. Their paper shows that, during 2021, students in districts with more in-person classes performed better in … Continue reading

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Seeds of Science: Why we got it so wrong on GMOs, by Mark Lynas

This is a book that I’ve had wanted to read for a long time. I do not remember when I read about it, but the outline of the book—an early anti-GMO activist explaining how the movement started and how he … Continue reading

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Loan evergreening: does it “save” firms?

I have written about my paper on loan evergreening in Uruguay in a couple of previous posts (here and here). A paper that is coming soon, by the way. The strategy we study—providing a bullet loan to repay an existing … Continue reading

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Loan evergreening: the role of bank solvency

In a previous post, I discussed how a couple of economists at the Banco Central del Uruguay and I are identifying instances of loan evergreening—when banks provide additional credit so that firms repay their previous loans—using very granular data. The … Continue reading

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Books Do Furnish a Life, by Richard Dawkins

Yep, I am catching up with book reviews. I have read several this year, although not at the same pace as last year, so there’s a lot of work to do. Let’s dive in. Richard Dawkins, the eminent British biologist, … Continue reading

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Loan evergreening

Loan evergreening is a situation where banks provide loans to firms in order to ensure that firms keep repaying the existing (previous) loans. It is a concept related to zombie lending, broadly defined as lending to non-viable firms. Loan evergreening … Continue reading

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So we are Bayes Business School now

Yesterday, The Business School (formerly Cass), which used to be—yes, you guessed it—Cass Business School, and that also used to be City University Business School, became Bayes Business School. You may recall that, in the wake of the killing of … Continue reading

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The Scout Mindset, by Julia Galef

I have known about Julia Galef for a while, as she hosts the podcast Rationally Speaking. I have talked about this podcast in the past. She used to co-host it with Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher and authors of several books, … Continue reading

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Draft No. 4, by John McPhee

“It takes what it takes” (William Shawn, former editor of The New Yorker) “Get that boy from the Old Vic” (Winston Churchill, referring to Richard Burton) “Write on subjects in which you have enough interest on your own to see … Continue reading

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