Welcome to my Weblog and the guide to my site
Who am I?
Hello fellow bloggers and webmongers ... I bid you welcome to my blog entitled Alpha.Sources; my name is Claus Vistesen and I am 23 years old. I am a MSc/Graduate student at the Copenhagen Business School at the Applied Economics and Finance program. In the autumn/winter 2008 to early spring 2009 I am re-locating to HEC Lausanne in Switzerland where I can load up on some of the more finer arts of macroeconomics and finance.
I have been online with Alpha.Sources since September 2005 and have realized how a serious online presence can be an asset in terms of academic work as well as on a personal relationship level. I am very grateful for the reactions, opinions, and contacts I have gotten through this site.
In terms of topics on Alpha.Sources I reserve the right to deal with anything that has my immediate interests.
Yet, there is of course a red thread. Particularly the interaction between macroeconomics and demographics is a strong anchor in what goes on at this space, and my work in general. Specifically, I am closely following the European and Japanese economy. However, in the end, Alpha.Sources represents a way for me to conceptualize my thoughts and views on the surrounding world, so no boxes and boundaries can be set on the content.
On that note I highly cherish the somewhat loose yet vivid community of econ and finance bloggers (and others) from whom I believe I have learned a lot. It is largely because of the interaction with these people and the subsequent sharing and creation of knowledge and views that I am still posting on Alpha.Sources. The econ/finance blogsphere is a wonderful place really and I would dare any community, virtual as well as not, to show a similar track record of discussion and interaction (with the subsequent value added). Obviously, the much debated credit turmoil has greatly increased the greater public's tolerance of "financial punditry per sq-meter", but I still hold that most of the original content add value.
Since Alpha.Sources was conceived, my work slowly but surely been getting an increasingly wider circulation through various news sites and blog aggregators. Some of them which are ...
Istockanalyst.com
Bestwaytoinvest.com
Global Strategy Watch
Straightstocks.com
I am happy and proud to be represented on every one of them.
Furthermore, I am proud to declare that Seeking Alpha, who is widely considered the top financial punditry aggregator, recently approved me as a gold contributor.
I am also happy to announce my affiliation with the Boston based start up Emerginvest who seeks to facilitate the process by which investors gain acces to and knowledge about emerging markets. My good friend and colleague Edward Hugh provide some further detail on our affiliation in this post. Essentially, Edward and I are not hired guns in any sense of the word. Rather we are exploting the synergies (ahh, those buzzwords) which are created through us being able to put our theories to work, as well as Emerginvest's demand for high quality macroeconomic content.
Finally, it is of course impossible for me not to mention my affiliation with Barcelona based economist Edward Hugh. Friend, colleague, and mentor are all labels, I would be happy to ascribe to him depending on the setting in which I find myself. Edward's writings are scattered all over the internet but through his mainpage here, you can learn more about him and where to go to sample his work. I suspect that Edward and I will never tire of exchanging daily e-mails on this and that (mostly global economics these days) and for that, I am very grateful.
Together with Edward I am also running and writing for a myriad of country and region specific weblogs. Through Edward's main page linked above you can get through to all of them. The two most important however are;
Global Economy Matters
Demography Matters
Guide to the site
There is really not much in it at the moment with Alpha.Sources and Beta.Sources representing the bulk of the site. The first thing to make clear is that Alpha.Sources remains the body of the site and thus my main blog. Beta.Sources has mainly been created as a place for me put up things such as working notes for papers and articles, lists of references, etc online in blog format. Beta.Sources will thus mainly work as a container for me to put up stuff I think should be online and accessible for my own convenience primarily. However, you are more than welcome to read what I put up and also comment on it.
As for current projects I am working together with Edward in preparing a slew of papers with respect to our main research agenda which seeks to explore the effects of demographics on the general macroeconomic environment. Moreover, my master's thesis which is moving ever closer by the day will also take up the baton on this topic. As with my undergrad thesis, I will be setting up a weblog to track my progress.
So that was basically it for now ... I encourage you to read and comment on Alpha.Sources. I am very liberal when it comes to comments and will only rarely delete and moderate comments unless of course they are obvious spam in which case they will be deleted. I do expect however that people behave and that flaming, pissing contests as well as hot temperdness are kept to a minimum. I will try to reply to all comments and e-mails transmitted through this site and if I don't, ping me again!
Best regards
Claus Vistesen
Last updated: 17/8-2008