Economics Links (9 June 2009)

Sorry for not posting this here last week.

Angry Bear:
Untitled post on the Unemployment Report

Current Recession vs the 1980-82 Recession


Econbrowser:
DeGlobalization: Transitory or Persistent?

Not a Robust Recovery

James Pethokoukis: "An Improving Job Market"

Output, Employment and Industrial Production in the "1980-82 Recession"

More on Bank Lending Data

High Anxiety (about Interest and Inflation Rates)


Economist's View:
Too Big to be Restructured (The theme of this essay ties in very well with my post on Mikhail Gorbachev's essay from the other day, "We Had Our Perestroika. It's High Time for Yours.".)

Contributions to the Change in Nonfarm Payroll Employment

Shiller: Home Prices May Keep Falling

Uneven Unemployment Rates

"VAT Time?"

Bank Mergers

"Reducing Inequality: Put the Brakes on Globalization?"


Financial Times:
The ‘part-timezation’ of America


Reuters:
China influence to grow faster than most expect: Soros


Real Property Alpha:
California Home Prices in Ounces of Gold


True/Slant:
NASCAR helped GM down its path of self-destruction ("Better equipped to compete? How ironic, given NASCAR’s role in helping the auto industry race down its path of self-destruction. Major auto companies used NASCAR for years to push cars and trucks with poor fuel economy numbers. The sport, in some ways, came to symbolize America’s embrace of consumption.")


VoxEU:
Why is Japan so heavily affected by the global economic crisis? An analysis based on the Asian international input-output tables

Does climate change affect economic growth?


Washington Post:
Book Review: The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street

The Economist: Gender Gulf

The April 10th edition of The Economist has an article about the problems Muslim women in the Middle East and the banking/financial services industries have in meeting each other. Much of this problem is due to gender segregation, but another problem is that many of these companies haven't thought about the benefits of targeting their marketing toward women and the practical ramifications of being able to market directly to these women; for example, hiring women who are able to meet clients and customers without needing a husband or other male relative to chaperone. I also like how the one company mentioned in the article, Forsa, avoid the "pink-ribboning." Unfortunately, this type of cosmetic change to a company's marketing scheme is all too common and is very superficial. "Oh, look! My credit card has a picture of a rose on it. I'll bank with you." Yeah, right.

But many women still avoid face-to-face meetings with unrelated men. That makes the male-dominated world of banking particularly hard to penetrate.

There are ways of getting round the problem. Saudi retail banks have set up segregated branches that only women can enter. “Ladies' banks” are also cropping up in the UAE. Segregation is a controversial issue, but the facilities at least allow women to manage their finances independently of prying fathers, brothers or husbands. Rising divorce rates give added motivation for women to hide away some money, skeptical of the help they will get from mostly male judges.

Increasingly, wealth managers are also realizing that women in the Gulf region are sitting on fortunes in cash, land and even jewelery. According to Amanda McCrystal of Bramdiva, a London-based wealth-consultation service for women, a few years ago there was a boom in online share-trading by women in the Gulf, since they could do it from the privacy of home. Many were singed by a regional crash in 2006. Some will not return; many of those who do may seek professional advice.

Sandy Shaw, who heads Middle Eastern operations at Coutts, a private bank based in London, says about a quarter of her clients are female, and are keen to keep control of their affairs, especially to ensure that their estates will pass to their children when they die. Aware of this, a small number of Western female bankers now travel regularly to the Gulf to hold meetings with female clients. Again, one of the attractions is privacy; they can visit a Saudi woman at home without her husband present, which a male banker normally could not do. Women may require different products from men, too. In Saudi Arabia and Qatar, for example, they have more of an appetite for lower-risk, capital-protected investments. But this is likely to change as they become more experienced investors, says Ms Shaw.

In the UAE, Dubai World, a government holding company, has set up Forsa, an investment company run by women for women. Its staff scorn what they call “pink-ribboning”: superficial changes to market products to women, like making a credit card pink. Across the region, more such firms would be helpful. This is not only because women need opportunities to work. The finance industry needs them, too: it is growing so fast that it is struggling to recruit and retain staff.

The message has sunk in in Bahrain, where a third of finance-sector employees are female, and in Kuwait, where, including property, the figure rises to 40%. Some employers there say they find female bankers work harder than men. Yet in Saudi Arabia, official statistics indicate that just 5% of Saudis working in finance and property are female. And across the region, it remains hard for female businesswomen to get loans, especially if they are not from prominent families. Even in Bahrain, where nearly one-third of businesses are registered by women, “sometimes women can only get a business license in their husband's name, especially if they have less capital,” says Aamina Awan, who is researching female entrepreneurship in the region.