The 17th Annual CIIF Symposium identified an urgent need in order to tackle Spain's current economic situation: to stimulate consumption. According to the IESE professors, to achieve this it is crucial for credit to be available for private initiative. The Center used the event as an opportunity to present its latest research findings aimed at optimizing profitability from capital invested, the predictability of housing prices and the profitability of investment funds and pension plans.

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The economic crisis and the challenges of a globalized business world were the main themes in the IESE MBA Global Leadership Series session given by Mario Greco, CEO of Zurich Global Life. Greco highlighted one of the keys for emerging from the crisis: tackling the wage gap between employees and managing directors.

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The financial crisis has revealed the need for a new business model in which discredited values such as ethics, responsibility and social conscience take center stage ahead of “the seduction of money.”
The conference on “Doing Good & Doing Well” brought together well-known personalities such as Michel Camdessus, the former Director of the International Monetary Fund, Rodney Schwartz, the founder of ClearlySo, and Vicky Colbert, who founded Escuela Nueva, for a roundtable discussions to define the social entrepreneur initiative as the new paradigm for our business future.

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By Rolf Campos, Professor at IESE and Dionisio García, Research Assistant 

Fearing a default from Greece, Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) - a hedge against the possibility of a credit provider failing to make payment - have earned a major role in financial markets. However, speculative use of this financial product diminishes its effectiveness. Professor Rolf Campos and research assistant Dionisio García explain what CDSs are and discuss a way to avoid their misuse.

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Prior, F.; Santomá Juncadella, J.

There are still some huge “blue oceans” waiting to be discovered and exploited in the financial products market. Although experience in "non-banking" sectors is still recent and ambivalent in developed countries, people in developing countries with no current account, who pay and are paid in cash, have been offered financial services and products very successfully for years. This book analyzes several of these experiences.

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Meerkatt, H.; Liechtenstein, Heinrich von

When the financial crisis struck almost two years ago, IESE professor Heinrich Liechtenstein and Heino Meerkatt, a partner at Boston Consulting Group and a financial expert, predicted that there would be a significant restructuring of risk capital. In their new work, the authors reveal the key to the survival of the firms in that sector: creating value through operating results.

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Palacios, J.

Where should you invest? The offering of investment funds in Spain is very broad, and it is important to know where those savings end up. Such funds are changing and this research analyzes the behavior of investment funds between 2000 and 2009. This is the continuation of previous work on the behavior of Spanish investment funds from 1992 to 2001. Taken together, the two studies cover almost two decades. In the first period the stock exchange rose by 16.3% whereas in the second period it rose by only 6.2%. The period covered was therefore representative and long enough to be able to draw fairly reliable conclusions about the behavior of the funds.

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Díaz Giménez, J., IESE Business School
Conesa, JC., Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona
Díaz-Saavedra, J., Universidad de Granada
Pijoan-Mas, J., CEMFI and CEPR

The increase in Value Added Tax (VAT) planned for July 2010 has sparked quite a controversy, but what impact will this measure have on the Spanish economy? The authors of this study quantify the consequences of this rate increase. To this end, they compare the results of two economic models: a traditional neo-classical growth model with a typical household and company and a model of overlapping generations with non-standard household.

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By Jorge Soley, Professor at IESE

On December 17, 2009, the Official Journal of the European Union published Directive 2009/138/EC on the taking-up and pursuit of the business of Insurance and Reinsurance. This is known as "Solvency II".
This study estimates the economic impact of "Solvency II" using an exercise in financial analysis which consists of quantifying the Minimum Capital Requirements.

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By José Luis Suárez, Professor at IESE

One of the basic principles of investment is risk diversification. Market players can diversify risk by choosing between different assets of the same type or different types of assets.
Asset classes traditionally include equities (stocks), fixed income (bonds) and real estate. There is no doubt that equities and bonds have been the most important assets in the institutional investors’ portfolios. But while real estate assets make up a small share of the portfolio, institutional investors are very important operators in the real estate markets.

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Madrid, May 11, 12, 18, 19, 25, 26, and June 1 and 2, 2010

Monitoring the departmental budget, communicating with the company's finance management or simply understanding the financial press to keep up to date with the sector, are some of the many ways in which managers from any field come up against economic and financial concepts and data that they need to understand and manage, especially in these times of crisis.

Non-financial executives who need to improve the assessment of their decisions will find in this program the tools they need to interpret data and diagnose the company's financial situation through its accounts. The program will also help people master a number of basic concepts for analyzing investment projects and negotiating with the banks.

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