Re: BlackRock & the financial crisis, perhaps you've already seen Benjamin Braun's 'Asset Manager Capitalism as a Corporate Governance Regime' & Petry-Fichtner-Heemskerk's 'Steering capital: the growing private authority of index providers in the age of passive asset management'.
PFH identifies "two reinforcing trends [triggered by the financial crisis] that transformed index providers from merely supplying information to exerting authority. First, the global index industry concentrated. ... The second and more consequential trend was the money mass-migration towards passive investments". Braun's explanation of the first is that "while the contingency of the 2008 financial crisis played an important role, concentration in the financial sector has been driven by some of the same forces as concentration in labor and product markets". For the second, "the financial crisis of 2008 accelerated the shift from expensive active funds into low-cost index funds" who enjoy network effects and economies of scale, making their shares more liquid as more investors pile in.
Braun's claims seem to mean that while the crisis gave an added boost to already-existing forces pushing toward concentration, investors also began to feel acutely unsure of the volatility of active investment. Somehow maybe not an entirely satisfying answer... & includes nothing specific about BlackRock vs other AMs.
I see there's a Google Translation. Not sure about Mandarin, but going back and forth between English and German (and French) I've found that DeepL is a much better translator than Google. Basic service is free but larger texts require a subscription.
The Greater Tooze Co-Prosperity Sphere grows! As someone who has never really been able to make time or space for podcasts, my continued engagement with John Zhu's rollicking retelling of Water Margin (a.k.a. Outlaws of the Marsh, a.k.a. one of the Four Great Classical Novels of China) has been a surprise. The informality & looseness of his presentation is totally winning: http://www.outlawsofthemarsh.com/
Thanks for all the fascinating links and, as always, for the insight. I read this incredibly powerful, riveting, and beautifully written account of an individual opposition fighter in Syria and definitely hope others find it.
Reading Sarah Schulman's Let the Record Show - was hesitant to take on an 800 page history of Act Up, but her writing always prompts new insights so was willing to trust it would happen again. Extraordinary read on how events at the extreme social periphery can come to be "seen," how the selection process in driving a campaign for visibility can turn up and create new problems, how the visual and intellectual and bureaucratic can align. Quite relevant as a prehistory of bureaucratic and political responses to Covid. A remarkable, angry book that's made me think differently about how I select and frame my own analytical work.
Re: BlackRock & the financial crisis, perhaps you've already seen Benjamin Braun's 'Asset Manager Capitalism as a Corporate Governance Regime' & Petry-Fichtner-Heemskerk's 'Steering capital: the growing private authority of index providers in the age of passive asset management'.
PFH identifies "two reinforcing trends [triggered by the financial crisis] that transformed index providers from merely supplying information to exerting authority. First, the global index industry concentrated. ... The second and more consequential trend was the money mass-migration towards passive investments". Braun's explanation of the first is that "while the contingency of the 2008 financial crisis played an important role, concentration in the financial sector has been driven by some of the same forces as concentration in labor and product markets". For the second, "the financial crisis of 2008 accelerated the shift from expensive active funds into low-cost index funds" who enjoy network effects and economies of scale, making their shares more liquid as more investors pile in.
Braun's claims seem to mean that while the crisis gave an added boost to already-existing forces pushing toward concentration, investors also began to feel acutely unsure of the volatility of active investment. Somehow maybe not an entirely satisfying answer... & includes nothing specific about BlackRock vs other AMs.
Enjoyed your interview in The Shanghai Book Review. Fresh perspective.
I see there's a Google Translation. Not sure about Mandarin, but going back and forth between English and German (and French) I've found that DeepL is a much better translator than Google. Basic service is free but larger texts require a subscription.
The Greater Tooze Co-Prosperity Sphere grows! As someone who has never really been able to make time or space for podcasts, my continued engagement with John Zhu's rollicking retelling of Water Margin (a.k.a. Outlaws of the Marsh, a.k.a. one of the Four Great Classical Novels of China) has been a surprise. The informality & looseness of his presentation is totally winning: http://www.outlawsofthemarsh.com/
Thanks for all the fascinating links and, as always, for the insight. I read this incredibly powerful, riveting, and beautifully written account of an individual opposition fighter in Syria and definitely hope others find it.
https://newlinesmag.com/essays/the-philosophers-wine/
This podcast with (your former student ?!) Leopold Aschenbrenner on existential risk was interesting, although I gather he's upset some Germans, being a bit negative on German culture.... https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2021/6/22/leopold-aschenbrenner-on-existential-risk-german-culture-valedictorian-efficiency-podcast
Reading Sarah Schulman's Let the Record Show - was hesitant to take on an 800 page history of Act Up, but her writing always prompts new insights so was willing to trust it would happen again. Extraordinary read on how events at the extreme social periphery can come to be "seen," how the selection process in driving a campaign for visibility can turn up and create new problems, how the visual and intellectual and bureaucratic can align. Quite relevant as a prehistory of bureaucratic and political responses to Covid. A remarkable, angry book that's made me think differently about how I select and frame my own analytical work.
Have you listened to ALAB? They post very infrequently, but its both educational on how law works and absolutely hilarious.