Choosing the ideal occupation is not a trivial decision. The profession one chooses can affect the amount of time available for spiritual duties, one's earnings, and whether an individual remains honest. Clearly, there is a strong connection between business ethics and the occupation one...

Present market instabilities have prompted great interest on the characteristics of specific portfolios such as minimum variance and equally- weighted risk contribution portfolios as these portfolios do not rely on the estimate of expected returns. Indeed, in turmoil periods traditional market...

This paper explores the optimisation of asset allocation within “alternative” investments, i.e. between private equity and hedge funds, as well as between private equity and public equities. It uses our proprietary Portfolio Blender tool. As a preliminary step before the optimisation, we...

Volatility is usually considered as a synonym for risk. Mainstream financial theory states that higher portfolio volatility is translated into higher expected returns while diversification helps eliminate idiosyncratic risks. This leaves us with an apparent anomaly as low-risk (low-beta) stocks...

Richard Cantillon and David Hume both propose the theory of monetary non-neutrality, whereby the money supply changes through the money balances of specific individuals. Such an uneven distribution of monetary change then spreads throughout the economy step by step and changes relative prices....

Most contemporary moral defenses of capitalism rely on ideas drawn from the modern philosophic tradition that emerged in the 17th-18th centuries. Almost always, advocates of a free market society have either invoked the notion of a social contract, a theory of natural rights, the insistence that...

This paper traces the different attempts to explain the role and the effects of public debt on national economies from the late 17th century to the postwar period of the 20th century. Its main emphasis lies in the treatment of public debt in the mercantilist, classical and post-classical period...

Spanish Abstract: Este ensayo se propone estudiar las raíces del liberalismo de la Escuela Austriaca, y las distintas etapas evolutivas que surgieron desde su fundación. En este sentido se destacan raíces en los pensadores pre-socráticos de la Antigua Grecia, en Juan de Mariana y la Escuela...

Upon leaving Tuscany to become Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold II left some notes (1790) that prove very interesting to today's economist. They show how a holistic approach to the socio-economic characteristics of a region should always be considered, starting from a people's spirit, or...