Additional co-winners of the 2009 Ig Nobel economics prize have been convicted

Two more of the many co-winners of the 2009 Ig Nobel economics prize have achieved special recognition from the Icelandic government: they have been pronounced guilty in legal proceedings. BACKGROUND: The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize for economics was awarded to the directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks — Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of […]

How Iceland is a very Ig Nobel nation, and why that’s good

Iceland, though a small, physically isolated country, can boast of great Ig Nobelity. Ig Nobel Prizes, of course, are awarded for achievements that make people laugh, then think. Iceland displayed panache in its Ig Nobellian displays of economics, and then government. BANKS. The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize for economics was awarded to the directors, executives, and […]

BC Prof explores new immortal legal/financial powers of dead people

The United States is a very good place to be dead; better than almost anywhere, legally speaking. Ray Madoff, a professor at Boston College Law School who specializes in trusts and estates, lays out evidence for that in her book called Immortality and the Law: The Rising Power of the American Dead. Other nations have their own strong […]

Smirkness in Economics

Those who follow developments in the derivatives market, and particularly in its sub-section, the options market, may be aware of the concept of Smirkness. It was first proposed at the 2005 China International Conference in Finance, where professors Jin Zhang and Yi Xiang presented their paper ‘Implied Volatility Smirk’ “In this paper, we propose a new […]