Top Traders Unplugged:  Campbell Harvey – Global Macro Series – August 19, 2020

To access the podcast click here.

In today’s episode we are joined by Campbell Harvey, Professor of Finance at Duke University and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Cam served as Editor of The Journal of Finance from 2006 to 2012 and as the 2016 President of the American Finance Association. He holds a Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Chicago.

Although Cam is well-known as being the inventor of the Yield-Curve Indicator, with an eight for eight track record in forecasting recessions in the U.S., he is also involved in crypto and blockchain technology, which made our conversation wide-ranging and super interesting.

Topics Discussed in this Episode

• The ‘Great Compression’ rather than another Great Depression

“Compression means that we go into a deep recession but we also come out of it and the numbers that we will see coming out of this recession will also be note worthy, and new records for positive increases.”

• How the Yield Curve indicator was signalling a mild recession even before the Corona crisis
• Why politician’s would rather have inflation than raise taxes

“To raise taxes is toxic in terms of your electability. So, it’s easier to have some sort of inflation and blame it on the pandemic or something like that.”

• How 50% of all companies in the S&P 500 were completely unaware of the risk of pandemics
• Why Bitcoin failed as a hedge in its first ever recession
• Why the US Dollar’s days as a world reserve currency are numbered

“I think, just looking at history, it’s really naïve to think that the U.S. will be the dominant currency forever. So, things change. So, economic tides come in and go out.”

• Why central banks may now feel incentivised to create their own digital currencies

” I think governments will embrace this technology for another reason and that is tax. So, right now with the value-added taxes, especially in Europe, there are just so many incentives to basically transact in cash to avoid the VAT”

• Technology and how it’s going to unleash opportunities to transact value & human capital on a scale never seen before

“I believe that technology will deliver a surge, in particular, to emerging markets; will spill over to the developed markets; the increased productivity will be striking. We will not be working 40 hour weeks in the future. There will be a lot more leisure time. There will be less income inequality as we’ve got equality of opportunity.”

• Cam’s somewhat rare, positive outlook for the future
• Why peer to peer transactions and lending will be the way forward

To access the podcast click here.