Inflation’s Root Cause and Downside of a ‘Windfall Profits Tax’
The consumer price index’s 7.9 percent increase over the past year “is excessive inflation” and “primarily the result of unnecessary fiscal stimulus ($1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act)” that has been “bolstered by excessively accommodative monetary policy by the Federal Reserve,” said Maryland Smith’s Michael Faulkender in opening remarks to lawmakers in an April 5, 2022, Senate Budget Committee hearing titled “Corporate Profits are Soaring as Prices Rise: Are Corporate Greed and
Short-term funding markets provide essential short-tenor financing for banks, dealers, and nonfinancial firms. They also play a central role in monetary policy transmission. These markets have experienced substantial funding stress and investor runs during the 07-09 financial crisis and the recent Covid-19 market turmoil, destabilizing the financial markets and beyond.
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Maryland Smith’s Rossi Selected for FDA Committee
Maryland Smith finance professor Clifford Rossi has been selected by the Food and Drug Administration to serve on its Pharmaceutical Science and Clinical Pharmacology Advisory Committee.
What Losing SWIFT Network Access Means for Russian Banks
With Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine intensifying, the United States and several key allies moved to cut Russia off from much of the global financial system – barring select Russian banks from participating the SWIFT global finance network.
2022 is shaping up to be another challenging year for the world, which is keeping risk management at the forefront of executive-level conversation. As businesses and governmental agencies learn to navigate the vast challenges of accelerating inflation, market volatility, geopolitical instability, COVID-19, supply chain disruptions, and labor shortages, organizations must take a strategic and risk-based approach to enterprise-level decision making. Importantly, risk managers must not operate in silos, and instead work to integrate with other key management functions.
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The Art and Science of Risk Management
Beyond quantifying and getting their boards to understand traditional financial risks such as credit and market risk, corporate risk officers are grappling with a host of nontraditional risks associated with and ranging from cyber to ESG (environmental, social and governance) and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion).
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Microsoft Aims to Level up With Activision-blizzard. It’s Not That Easy.
Its proposed $75 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard would make Microsoft the world’s third-largest publisher of video games and, more significantly, would solidify its position in the development of the "metaverse” – widely considered the next evolution of the internet by which users in the virtual reality space interact with a computer-generated environment and other users.
16 Stocks to Watch in 2022
Six months ago, Maryland Smith’s David Kass updated his semi-annual “stocks to watch” list, expanding the lineup of watch-worthy shares to 21. But now he’s narrowing the list. The move comes amid rising uncertainties – inflationary pressures, supply chain disruptions and the latest COVID-19 variant to name just a few, says Kass, clinical professor of finance at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.
How a New Life Cycle Variable Reveals the Big Picture
Analysis of product life cycles has been underutilized by the likes of research economists and financial analysts in examining firm investment policies.