The relationship between theory and fact is particularly problematic when interpreting the complex, creative and socially-constructed world of markets. This lecture explores how theories frame our vision and how prices and institutions transmit information, before examining the vital distinction between measurable risk and radical uncertainty.
Visiting Fellow at the European Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Richard Bronk is a writer and part-time academic, with particular expertise in the history of ideas, philosophy of economics, comparative corporate governance and European political economy.
Bronk was educated at Merton College, Oxford from 1979-1983, where he was awarded an Exhibition, a Postmastership and first class honors (Mods and Finals), and has an MA (Oxon) in Literae Humaniores (Classics and Philosophy). He then spent seventeen years in the City of London – with positions including head of European equities at Baring Asset Management, European equity strategist at Merrill Lynch and Adviser on European capital markets and political economy at the Bank of England. From 2000-2007, Bronk was a Teaching Fellow at the European Institute, LSE – lecturing on varieties of capitalism, EMU and EU enlargement, and on theoretical concepts in political economy.
Since 2007, he has been a Visiting Fellow at the Institute. Bronk is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, has appeared in a number of BBC radio shows and is a regular speaker at literary and philosophy festivals.
In economics and finance, an allowance for the hazard (risk) in an investment or loan. Default risk refers to the chance that a borrower will not repay a loan. If a banker believes that a borrower may not repay a loan, the banker will charge the true interest plus a premium for the default risk, the premium depending on the degree of presumed risk. All stock investment carries an implicit risk since there is no guarantee of return on investment. Trading or variability risk is the amount that the return may vary, up or down, from the expected return on investment.
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