Business Economics articles from October 1998

Business Economics archives from October 1998

Financial services and convergence: advancing to the endgame.
October 1, 1998... Each week brings news of another financial services acquisition and serves as a reminder that this massive and diverse industry is in the midst of unprecedented change, consolidation, and convergence. Unstoppable market forces, such as changing...

Conducting monetary policy in a global economy.
October 1, 1998... In the past thirty years the global economy has undergone tremendous change and become increasingly more integrated. World trade has grown much faster than world output, and international capital flows have expanded still more rapidly. The...

Financial services regulation.
October 1, 1998... The global arrangements for the supervision of financial institutions have drawn unprecedented attention in recent years from governments, the financial community and the public. In particular, the G-7 Heads of Government have cited the need to...

Financial services in the United States: the next decade.
October 1, 1998... Finance is special for at least two reasons. First, finance is ubiquitous. Virtually all businesses, governments, and individuals use and need finance. Second, finance inherently has a time dimension: An initial payment is made (a loan, an...

Financial services industry technology: is the Y2K challenge a harbinger to things to come?
October 1, 1998... During the past quarter century, financial service industries in the United States have survived a number of crises in which thousands of banks, thrifts, credit unions, investment firms and insurance companies failed. Those failures, combined...

Has the business cycle been abolished?
October 1, 1998... This article originally was an invited paper prepared for the meeting on June 11, 1997, of the Panel of Economic Advisers to the Congressional Budget Office of the U.S. Congress. On rereading the statement for publication in Business Economics, I...

A sectoral perspective on economic stability.
October 1, 1998... The strength and stability of the U.S. economy has spawned a recent debate about the death of the traditional business cycle. GDP growth through 1997 shows the economy expanding at a strong rate with few signs of inflationary pressure. Many...

The business economics at work. (Thomson Financial Services Inc.)
October 1, 1998... Face it: Economics is not a profession known to most high-school students. Like many of my generation, when I was kid I dreamed of becoming a doctor, preferably one who would work in as exciting and action-packed environment as the MASH unit I...

Electronic commerce: a market opportunity for support equipment and services.(Industry Corner)(Column)
October 1, 1998... Two key slogans, "Doing Business on the Net" and "Conducting Electronic Commerce," have become popular in the late 1990s, yet both concepts can trace their roots back three decades. However, they differ: the Internet had its origin with the U.S....

How to find an economic consultant. (The Consultants' Corner)(Column)
October 1, 1998... The single question that was raised with the greatest frequency among those who responded to the initial column was, "How do I find clients?" Even among seasoned veterans, the need to keep the client pipeline full is a never-ending challenge. It...

Resources for country data. (International Monetary Fund's Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board)(The Statistics Corner)(Column)
October 1, 1998... As the Asian financial crisis developed over the past several months, economists who rarely spent much time tracking the economies of Asia found themselves in need of current data on Asian and other developing countries. Not being familiar with...

EIA analyzes restructuring of electricity markets. (Energy Information Administration's reports)(The Statistics Producers' Corner)(Column)
October 1, 1998... Since 1993, the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the independent statistical and analytical agency within the U.S. Department of Energy, has prepared a number of reports about the restructuring of electricity markets occurring at both the...

E-mail file attachments.(The PC Corner)(Column)
October 1, 1998... Internet e-mail is only capable of transmitting a seven-bit character. I don't know why this is, but it certainly complicates the life of anyone who wants to send a binary file through the Internet e-mail system. In his guest column several years...

Sorry, Mrs. Reagan, but 'just say yes.' (detection and and cleansing of the CAP macro computer virus)(The PC Corner)(Column)
October 1, 1998... One of the fun things about being in the Middle East is that we get all of the computer viruses coming out of South and East Asia. The latest to hit the Saudi Ministry of Finance and National Economy is the CAP A macro virus. This is a variant of...

The Fortune Sellers: The Big Business of Selling and Buying Predictions.
October 1, 1998... By William A. Sherden, New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1998, pp. 308, $29.95. The Fortune Sellers is a sharply worded, often sarcastic attack on forecasting that also at times is entertaining and informative. William Sherden has created a...

The Accidental Theorist: And Other Dispatches from the Dismal Science.
October 1, 1998... By Paul Krugman, New York, NY, W.W. Norton, 1998, pp. 204, $25.00. The Accidental Theorist is a lively account of current economics, with Krugman deflating many popularly held shibboleths on the "new economy," globalization, calling it...