Economics

Most fundamentally, the subprime bubble was created by- a surfeit of global liquidity due to large current account surpluses in China and other emerging economies and easy global monetary policies; a flawed private mortgage securitization process that funnelled the liquidity into poorly underwritten mortgage and other loans; and weak regulatory oversight that failed to catch and rectify the problems in the securitization process.

Chief Economist of Moody's Analytics & Economic Forecaster

As soon as such actions are taken, I think a lot of entrepreneurs will see Greece as being the right place to invest.

Professor of Economics specializing in network economics and digital markets

Germany for example, has decided to close-down its nuclear industry. That creates a huge electricity deficit, and there is the potential to produce a large amount of renewable energy in Greece and export it to countries like that.

Professor of Economics specializing in network economics and digital markets

Essentially therefore you have a three-pronged approach. Firstly privatisation, secondly cutting the size of the state and thirdly- collecting existing taxes (rather than imposing any new ones).

Professor of Economics specializing in network economics and digital markets

There is a significant part of the Greek economy- maybe 30-40%- is not in the 'official' books. That has to be reined in. To put this in context, if that is reined in… to a large extent, the revenue side of the Greek problem would be fixed.

Professor of Economics specializing in network economics and digital markets

The great thing about film is that the capital structures allow you to pick where you want to be on the risk-return spectrum. If you're looking for lower risk, you can sit where the banks used to- advancing money against known collateral.

Our model is very much investing in media cash-flows. We don't take positions in quoted media stocks, as that introduces too much exposure to volatile equity markets- and media tends to get hammered more than other sectors when the markets have any degree of turbulence in them.

The ability for hedge funds and other private investment product to advertise is certainly a big deal that will have lasting impact on the manner which these products are distributed and marketed.

Each time we get a bit of momentum in the economy, each time our exporters make up for the fact that domestic demand is flat.... we get knocked back by the Euro Zone.

Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI)

The biggest challenge is a lack of confidence. Confidence is preventing businesses from investing significant amounts of their balance sheet strength, they simply do not feel they will get returns on that investment, and so they're holding cash.

Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI)

I would essentially start by abandoning everything Osborne set out to do. I would be cutting taxes, not raising them. I would immediately reverse the VAT raise that he had. I would impose those within an hour of taking office.

Former Federal Reserve Member & Leading Labor Economics Scholar

The economy is in the doldrums and likely to worsen. The UK economy has performed worse than most Euro Zone countries, and the calls for a change, of course, are becoming pretty loud. The government's economic strategy is clearly in disarray.

Former Federal Reserve Member & Leading Labor Economics Scholar

Not all financial contracts are created equal. We should not assume that there is one single benchmark for all types of financial transactions. There are certain transactions that should be based on market rates, and others which call for the kind of benchmark that LIBOR provides.

MIT Finance Professor & Pioneer of Quantitative Finance & Behavioral Economics

It's definitely affected the psychology of the marketplace. It could not have come at a worse time. We have to deal with this expeditiously and make the system more robust to these kind of issues.

MIT Finance Professor & Pioneer of Quantitative Finance & Behavioral Economics

It certainly plays a much bigger role than was ever intended to. A number of financial institutions and contracts rely on LIBOR as the benchmark by which other rates are set. I don't think it was ever intended that LIBOR would play such a central role between so many institutions and contracts.

MIT Finance Professor & Pioneer of Quantitative Finance & Behavioral Economics

Financial markets depend on trust, and we had precious little trust as it was. The LIBOR scandal has done nothing to restore that trust. We have to do a lot more work on our regulations, procedures and regulators to re-establish that level of trust.

MIT Finance Professor & Pioneer of Quantitative Finance & Behavioral Economics