Since Hayek’s (1945) work on the spread of information within markets through the use of the price mechanism, financial economists such as Fama and Shiller have given different opinions on the efficiency of capital markets and the degree of information available to traders. …

I studied in four countries and completed my studies with a Master’s Degree from a top tier university. I can say my education has been top notch and has helped me master critical thinking and problem solving. However, after working for six years, I felt the need to improve my knowledge of computer and data science to carry out some important projects. I started evaluating several options such as taking live courses at the closest university, reading several books, getting a private tutor, and learning by myself through tutorials.

My main objective was to learn by doing with a mix…

Institutions are essential to facilitating exchange and sustaining economic growth

Developed economies are profoundly defined by institutions whose objective is to promote fairness and codify its meaning into law. Institutions have been created to establish order and reduce uncertainty through their informal constraints and formal laws. Therefore, they are central to economic growth because they reduce transaction costs by a) providing a safe environment that allows productivity, b) establishing order and facilitating exchange in large markets, b) and substantially decreasing information asymmetry between players (North, 1991).

Transaction costs

Weber, in his treaty on bureaucracy, emphasized the importance of rules for the reduction…

Canva is great. I used it for months before switching to more advanced options. It is easy, accessible, and cool. Everybody can produce a little piece of art in seconds. It’s not a surprise that every month 30 million users choose Canva over more complex solutions like Adobe or Sketch. Canva’s numbers are growing exponentially each month, but is the company really worth $6 billion?

Canva’s financials

Unlike many unicorns, Canva is profitable (apparently). The founders declared a paid user base of 1.5 million subscribers to Canva’s Pro account (Forbes, 2020). Hence, we can assume that Canva’s yearly revenues are close to…

Tennis is a dynamic and complex sport. There are several shots involved in a single point, but only one of them is played without the opponent’s influence: the serve. Indeed, the serve gives players the chance to start the point with a concrete advantage. Having a good serve is an essential aspect for every professional player, but can we correlate a good first serve to an excellent performance? If you are a tennis player, you may have heard the say “You are only as good as your first serve”. Is this true?

Dataset

In order to answer our research question, we…

Inflation does to the economy, or better, to money what age does to the body. We may or may not perceive its effects in the short term, but it affects our life in the long term. However, in this period of economic instability we may see inflation rising suddenly to unexpected levels. Since the topic of inflation is wide and complex, I will use the Italian economy to contextualize the phenomenon and describe my hypothesis. In addition, I will tackle a few arguments that go against mainstream economics with real life examples.

A brief introduction to inflation

The concept of inflation may be summarized in…

There comes a point in time when our business needs to scale by attracting the attention of several customers. When customer acquisition becomes the main objective of our strategy, we may find ourselves dealing with credit extension requests. At first, it may be very tempting to satisfy all these requests in order to grow our customer base. However, it is essential to perform a rigorous risk analysis without being biased by our goals. Indeed, a loose credit extension program may benefit our revenues in the short term while threatening the financial stability of our business in the long term.

The credit extension dilemma

I…