Clark Center Forum

The polls carried out by the Clark Center’s various Expert Panels are always interesting, but they are rarely that surprising. Last week’s poll of the European Experts Panel was an exception. As Patrick Honohan of Trinity College Dublin put it, “I never thought it would come to this. But it has”. The panel was asked […] 

 

This European survey examines (a) In a world in which most economic powers have programmes that give preference to their own strategic resources – for example, the Chinese have ‘Made in China’, and the Americans have ‘Buy American’ – the EU’s strategic independence would be substantially enhanced by establishing some form of European preference in public procurement in selected sectors; (b) A ‘Buy European’ programme of public procurement in selected sectors could be implemented in a way that would deliver greater EU innovation and growth over the next five years than in the absence of such a programme 

Nasdaq, the tech-firm-heavy New York Stock Exchange and index provider, is consulting on what, at first, appear to be some fairly technical tweaks to its rules on index composition and inclusion. Given the seemingly dry subject matter and the distraction of the events in the Middle East, this has not received a great deal of […] 

This Finance survey examines: Nasdaq has been consulting on inclusion of the largest companies in its indexes: https://indexes.nasdaqomx.com/docs/NDX_Consultation-February_2026.pdf; (a) Changing the rules for index inclusion to allow fast-track entry by extremely large IPOs (including waiving the free float requirement) is consistent with the objectives of passive index-based investing; (b) Changing the rules for index inclusion to allow fast-track entry by extremely large IPOs (including waiving the free float requirement) will make index fund investors measurably better off 

The war in the Gulf has, understandably, taken up most of the bandwidth of global investors and most of the front pages of the financial media over the past few weeks. Soaring energy prices, coupled with substantial falls in bond and equity markets, and a high degree of uncertainty all demand attention. But if that […] 

It is something of a historical irony that, 250 years after the Declaration of Independence, Oliver Cromwell – Lord Protector of England in the years of the interregnum after the civil war and the execution of Charles I – continues to have an influence on the economic policy set-up of the United States. In the […] 

This Finance survey examines: Some major private credit funds - including those offered by BlackRock, Cliffwater and Morgan Stanley - have maintained their redemption limits, not fully filling all investor requests; (a) The enforcement of restrictions on withdrawals from private credit funds predicts that the funds will substantially underperform indices of liquid high-yield corporate bonds over the next 18 months; (b) Assets in the private credit funds that are restricting withdrawals are substantially overvalued relative to their true market value 

This US survey examines (a) The 60-day waiver of the Jones Act (which requires that cargo moved between domestic ports is carried on US vessels) will deliver substantially lower average US gas prices at the pump than otherwise over the next two months; (b) Permanent repeal of the Jones Act would have a measurably bigger impact in lowering average US gas prices at the pump than a temporary suspension; (c) Any national security benefits from the Jones Act are more than offset by its negative economic effects 

As readers will know, the global economy is in the early stages of an energy price shock driven by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.  This particular crisis is both difficult to write about and clouded in uncertainty. As with any geopolitical issue, and especially […]