While the London G20 Summit represented a step towards a more inclusive global governance system, further institutional reforms are badly needed to ensure the interests of low-income countries are adequately represented, according to national leaders and other participants gathered at this year’s World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town. In particular, they urged the major industrialized countries to accept long-stalled changes in the governing structures of the IMF and the World Bank. “A critical lesson from the current crisis is the need for a transformed global financial system,” Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa, said in his opening address

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World Economic Forum on Africa opens with call for global governance reforms

I had the chance to chat with Governor Deval Patrick for a few minutes today at Microsoft’s NERD Center, toward the end of the Innovate MassTech meeting (aka the IT Collaborative Study Group Meeting.) So I asked him about non-competes. Paul Sagan, the CEO of Akamai, had just said on stage that he is in favor of keeping non-compete agreements legal and enforceable in Massachusetts, and that he’d seen no data that says that non-competes have any effect on making us less competitive

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Gov. Patrick on Non-Compete Agreements in Massachusetts

Carlo A. Favero IGIER-Bocconi University The financial crisis and the recent fluctuations in the stock market have prompted investors to ask the question “Are stocks still the best investment for the long run?” Figure 1 reports the value over time in real terms (nominal returns are deflated by the inflation of the Consumer Price Index) of 1 dollar in 1900. 1 dollar invested in the SP index at the beginning of the twentieth century has risen rather steadily to 800 times the initial value at the end of the century and it has then fluctuated to reach 500 hundred times the initial value at the end of 2008.

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Stocks for the long-run?

In between favorites like WWII documentaries , Modern Marvels , and Gangland , the History channel occasionally dabbles in supernatural themed programming. Normally, shows like Monster Quest make me change the channel about as fast as Designing Women. This time however, History will be taking on one of the more colorful incidents of desi-themed hysteria in recent times – no, not Sanjaya but close, the New Delhi Monkey Man – Engrained in the history and mythology of India are tales of a ferocious creature, half-man, half-ape.

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The Monkey Man Cometh

The OECD says yes GIVEN that the current global recession had its origins in a global credit crunch, it is not surprising that there has been much discussion of whether fixing the financial system (particularly, getting banks lending again) is a necessary condition for a broader economic recovery. Some, like Japanese economist Keiichiro Kobayashi, have argued that the answer is an emphatic yes, pointing to Japan's experience in the 1990s. Paul Krugman didn’t agree with Mr Kobayashi’s interpretation of the Japanese experience (but Mr Kobayashi argued in response that Krugman was using the wrong period in Japanese history to make his point)

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Can output recover before credit does?

New products tend to come and go rather quickly at Japan’s convenience stores, especially in the case of soft drinks and instant ramen (and candies and seasonal alcoholic beverages and…you get the point). A few days ago I wandered into the local Lawson’s to be greeted with a 新発売 (newly on sale) product that surprised me a bit: I LOHAS （い・ろ・は・す） water. LOHAS, of course, stands for “ Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability ,” and it is something of a dishonest, soulless marketing scam marketing demographic aimed at assuaging guilt amonst urban yuppie types self-labeled “green” consumers (whose actual consumption patterns and lifestyles tend to resemble anything but sustainability).

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I LOHAS water now on sale in Japan – guess the producer

As reported earlier today by Japan Probe, Paul Krugman recently visited Tokyo and offered an evaluation of some of the economic stimulus attempts the Japanese government has made thus far. Krugman gave the lowering of expressway fees to a flat 1,000 yen a score of 40 out of 100, due to the fact that such a measure might increase traffic jams and the sales of gasoline. Krugman scored the 12,000 yen rebate program a 0 out of 100, and reserved judgement on the government’s new program to offer “eco points” to consumers who make purchases of “green” products

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Paul Krugman visits Japan

A confession: I have been too complacent about technological fixes for the twin problems of climate change and finite oil and gas reserves. Without looking very closely at the numbers, I figured that if politicians would finally get their act together, and if we avoided some of the more unlucky possibilities (such as the release of methane ice from the oceans), cheap, clean energy would be within our grasp, given suitable research incentives and some technological brilliance. Looking at progress in computer chips, I dreamt about how cheap photovoltaic solar panels might become over the next 50 years.

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Switch to renewable energy? If only it were that simple

“There is an extremism premium that is being paid across the planet and we all believe this is a moment of opportunity, and the question is whether we’re going to seize it,” said John F. Kerry, Chairman, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and Senator from Massachusetts (Democrat), USA, at a plenary session on security at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East. He told leaders that the “greatest security challenge comes back to less of an economic challenge and more of a political challenge that we are facing.” The Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies at the heart of this political challenge.

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Kerry challenges leaders to stop paying an "extremism premium"

Hickey and Walters ( Bespoke ) submit: The unofficial earnings season came to an end with Wal-Mart’s report yesterday. In general, stocks performed well throughout the reporting period, and below we highlight the ones (> $5) that had the best one-day reactions to their earnings reports. For stocks that report in the morning, we use that day’s change, and for stocks that report after the close, we use the next day’s change

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Best Performing Stocks During Eanings Season

A survey of 1,000 US adults by Brightkite and GfK Technology has found that people are noticing more types of ads on their mobile phones. Thirty-eight percent of US mobile phone owners recall seeing advertising on their cell phones in the first quarter of 2009, although for smartphone users that rises to 59 percent—smartphone users mostly saw web advertising while regular phone users mostly saw SMS ads. For smartphone users, 23 percent recall seeing SMS advertising, but 20 percent saw ads in mobile social networks, 15 percent saw ads in mobile TV/video, and those seeing ads in a location-based network tripled in the quarter to 15 percent

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Report: People Seeing More Types Of Mobile Ads

ABSTRACT The global financial crisis, brewing for a while, really started to show its effects in the middle of 2007 and into 2008. Around the world stock markets have fallen, large financial institutions have collapsed or been bought out, and governments in even the wealthiest nations have had to come up with rescue packages to bail out their financial systems. On the one hand many people are concerned that those responsible for the financial problems are the ones being bailed out, while on the other hand, a global financial meltdown will affect the livelihoods of almost everyone in an increasingly inter-connected world.

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Global Financial Crisis 2008

Tom Lydon (ETF Trends) submits: Exchange traded funds (ETFs) tracking the various bond types available were on a roller coaster ride in the past few months but this hasn’t discouraged investors from looking into these fixed income markets. Since September, fixed-income ETFs have been experiencing a wild ride, writes Paul Amery for IndexUniverse . Long-term government bonds saw a end-year really and then a retraction

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Think Bond ETFs Are Boring? Think Again

The Daily Reckoning submits: By Bill Bonner Last week, the European Central Bank squared its shoulders and joined ranks of the damned. The Times of London reported that in joining up with the US Federal Reserve Bank and the Bank of England, the European Central Bank “pulled out all the stops” in their drive to revive their economies. The ECB announced that it will cut its key lending rate to its lowest level ever and begin a form of “quantitative easing,” in which it will buy corporate debt in order to reduce commercial interest rates

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Economies, Central Banks with Napoleonic Complex: On to Moscow!

When John Taylor formulated many years ago the very simple and well-known Taylor’s Rule for monetary policy to serve as a guideline for short-term interest rate decisions, he suggested basically that the “real” interest rate should be reviewed whenever there was a major discrepancy between actual inflation and a “target”inflation and also indicated that a similar reasoning should be adopted for the so-called output gap (percentage difference between potential full-employment output and effective real RGP).

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Stopping Financial Bubbles through Taylor’s Rule

Sony ( NYSE: SNE ) has released its full year earnings for the 12 months ending March 31st, and its 50 percent share in Sony Ericsson ( NSDQ: ERIC ) helped drag down ts results. We already knew Sony Ericsson was in trouble—it’s first quarter results were dismal and it announced plans to axe 2,000 jobs. For the 12 months ending March 31st Sony reported an equity in net loss from affiliated companies of 25.1 billion yen (US$256 million), a deterioration of 125.9 billion yen (US$1.323 billion) year-on-year

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Earnings: Sony Ericsson Drags Down Sony Results

With all the hype about green shoots, “reassuring” stress tests and stock markets rallies, not to mention the fabulous New York weather, I felt a sudden urge to go shopping! Yet, except from a birthday present and the obligatory ticket to Star Trek *The Movie*, I couldn’t do it… I still have trouble convincing myself to splurge on anything that I can’t eat. Just to double-check I don’t suffer from some kind of acute post-crisis hoarding syndrome, I had a look at the data to see how far (or not) I stand from the average American consumer. In fact, the point of the exercise went beyond my own syndrome-check: The green shoot story rests partly on the view that the liquidation of inventories we have been witnessing for the past year and a half will have to give way to a re-building of stocks—read production! I mean, there are only so many times you can go to BestBuy and look for your favorite laptop in vain, before you start screaming at management.

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The Resilience (?) of the American Consumer

Yesterday I testified to the House Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade (part of the House Financial Services Committee).  The hearing’s title was “Implications of the G-20 Leaders Summit for Low Income Countries and the Global Economy,” and the main topic was whether Congress should support  an extra $100bn for the IMF that the Obama Administration agreed at the G20 summit in early April ( witness list, webcast, and written testimony ). The committee was mostly in favor of the US continuing to play a leading role in supporting the IMF, but pressed the witnesses to explain whether the IMF could lose this money (highly unlikely), how this would protect American jobs (definitely, but hard to quantify precisely), and if the broader package of IMF reform should also be supported (e.g., the proposed gold sales are being reassessed, to see they could generate more resources for aid to developing countries)

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Can The US Save The World? (House Testimony)

Airline passengers recently ejected an innocent Muslim family from an airplane because they were afraid the family were terrorists. Similar reasoning explains why Dani Rodrik favors industrial policy as a key to success.Before getting overly critical of Dani, whom I admire a lot, let me confess I have frequently committed the same type of reasoning error myself, and so does virtually everyone else. But it’s still wrong

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How ethnic profiling explains Dani Rodrik’s fondness for industrial policy

Two satellite companies, the British Inmarsat Ventures, and the French-Luxembourg Solaris Mobile, have won the rights to a band of spectrum to provide mobile satellite services across Europe, the European Commission said Thursday. The mobile satellite services (MSS) that could emerge include high-speed internet access, mobile television and radio or emergency communications.

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European Commission Awards Spectrum Rights For Mobile Satellite Services

Ali Diab (pictured, right), AdMob’s VP of Product Management, said today at EconSM in San Francisco that there are currently five things that are working in mobile advertising: the iPhone, applications, Android, Webkit (a mobile web browser) and conversion. In particular, he called attention to conversion, which is a measurable event, such as a download or intention to buy. “Conversion is something we are keenly focused on – even more so than online.” He said something they’ve discovered is to help with iPhone application downloads is the company’s new advertising-based “iPhone Download Exchange,” which launched last month

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@ EconSM: AdMob Says Unused Ad Inventory Is Driving Millions Of iPhone App Downloads

Orange UK has released its 5th Digital Media Index, which shows that mobile handset data usage for the company is up 108 percent year-on-year. As part of that it found that music downloads to mobile phones increased 38 percent, video downloads increased 38 percent and the number of mobile games increased by 8 percent. Social networks also received a boost, with the number of unique users accessing them via mobile phones increasing by 48 percent

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Orange UK Sees Mobile Data Usage Rise 108 Percent

We held our third annual Economics of Social Media conference at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco Thursday. The theme this year was “Social meets Mobile.” Here are highlights: — @ EconSM: More Audio Ads Likely Coming To Pandora — How Wolfgang’s Vault Thrives Where Other Music Startups Fail — @ EconSM: CBS’ Lurie: CBS Would Only Put Content On Hulu On Non-Exclusive Basis — @ EconSM: CBS: Making Money From Mobile Apps — @ EconSM: Can Mobile Social Networks Compete With Their Big Web Competitors? — @ EconSM: How Twitter Plans To Make Money From Search, Carriers and Content — Twitter Executive Talks About Keeping Tweeters From Leaving — @ EconSM: Nokia Says App Sales Jump By 70 Percent With Carrier Billing — @ EconSM: AdMob Says Unused Ad Inventory Is Driving Millions Of iPhone App Downloads From our Sponsors: Lotame Locate, Target, and Message your customer using Social Data What happens when events in Social Media threaten your brand, like Dominos Pizza

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@ EconSM: Full Coverage

We’ve gotten hints about Twitter’s business model from its founders, its backers and random speculators—but Kevin Thau, Twitter’s director of mobile business development, gave EconSM attendees a more tangible picture of the startup’s three-pronged revenue stream: It’s about search, carriers and content . Thau joined Twitter in mid-January, since then, he said the company has brokered about a dozen business deals with partners like mobile service providers, handset makers and even media companies.

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@ EconSM: Twitter’s Business Model: Search, Carriers And Content

Bill Morrow has been Clearwire’s CEO for only two months, but he’s not at all disillusioned about WiMax’s image in the industry today. In the company’s first-quarter conference call today and in an interview with mocoNews, he addressed questions head-on about why Clearwire ( NSDQ: CLWR ) believes WiMax will be successful—despite a lot of negative press and attention. Morrow said consumers fundamentally don’t care what technology they are using as long as it works.

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Clearwire’s New CEO Bill Morrow Tackles Anti-WiMax Sentiments Head On