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Forecast geopolitics and markets with this clear and insightful resource

Geopolitical Alpha – An Investment Framework for Predicting the Future provides readers with an original and compelling approach to forecasting the future and beating the markets while doing so. Persuasively written by author, investment strategist, and geopolitical analyst Marko Papic, the book applies a novel framework for making sense of the cacophony of geopolitical risks with the eye towards generating investment-relevant insights.

Geopolitical Alpha posits that investors should ignore the media-hyped narratives, insights from "smoke-filled rooms," and most of their political consultants and, instead, focus exclusively on the measurable, material constraints facing policymakers.  In the tug-of-war between policymaker preferences and their constraints, the latter always win out in the end. Papic uses a wealth of examples from the past decade to illustrate how one can use his constraint-framework to generate Geopolitical Alpha. In the process, the book discusses:

  • What paradigm shifts will drive investment returns over the next decade
  • Why investment and corporate professionals can no longer treat geopolitics as an exogenous risk
  • How to ignore the media and focus on what drives market narratives that generate returns

Perfect for investors, C-suite executives, and investment professionals, Geopolitical Alpha belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in the intersection of geopolitics, economics, and finance.

Table of Contents

  1. Cover
  2. Foreword
  3. Introduction
    1. Notes
  4. Part One: SCAFFOLDING
    1. Chapter 1: We're Not in Kansas Anymore
    2. Cut off from the Yellow Brick Road
    3. The End of the Goldilocks Era
    4. The Tornado Hits Kansas: Geopolitical Paradigm Shifts
    5. The Nail in the Coffin: COVID-19
    6. Welcome to Oz
    7. Beware of the Wizards
    8. Notes
    9. Chapter 2: The Constraint Framework: Three Pillars
    10. Geopolitics Is Not a “Nice-to-have”
    11. The First Pillar: Materialist Dialectic
    12. Second Pillar: Diagnosticity of Constraints
    13. Diagnosticity in Practice
    14. Third Pillar: The Person versus the Situation
    15. Fundamental Attribution Error in Practice
    16. The Three Pillars of the Constraint Framework
    17. And Now for Some Math
    18. Where Do We Go from Here?
    19. Notes
    20. Chapter 3: The Wizards of Oz
    21. Overview: Intelligence and Investing
    22. The False Expert
    23. The Connected Player
    24. The Funnel
    25. The Insider
    26. The Spy
    27. You Cannot Outsource Your Fiduciary Duty
    28. Notes
  5. Part Two: THE CONSTRAINTS
    1. Chapter 4: Politics
    2. “You May Have All the Money, Raymond …”
    3. … But Boris Has All the Rhetoric
    4. Introducing the Median Voter Theorem
    5. Predicting the Long-term: Welcome to the Buenos Aires Consensus!
    6. MVT in a Vote-less Nation: Does China Have a Median Voter?
    7. Political Constraints: Takeaway
    8. Notes
    9. Chapter 5: The Economy and the Market
    10. Between a Rock and a Hard Place
    11. Fundamentals at Work: The German Question
    12. Greece After the Euro: The Land of Milk and Honey?
    13. Geopolitics versus Economics: Is Trade War Sustainable?
    14. Power Dynamics and Ancient Greece: A Theory Interlude
    15. Relative Gain: Why Trade Wars Fizzle in a Multipolar World
    16. The World Wars: Economic Constraints in a Multipolar World
    17. Economic and Market Constraints: Takeaway
    18. Notes
    19. Chapter 6: Geopolitics
    20. Origins of Geopolitical Theory
    21. The Trump Doctrine
    22. Russia's Constraints Abroad
    23. Geopolitics: The Takeaway
    24. Notes
    25. Chapter 7: Constitutional and Legal Constraints: The Constraint–Preference Hybrids
    26. Euro Area Crisis Averted
    27. Trump and Trade
    28. Reconciliation and the Markets
    29. The US Budget Process
    30. The Reconciliation Process
    31. Reconciliation and the 2017 Tax Reform: So What?
    32. How to Peddle a Budget-busting Tax Cut
    33. Constitutional and Legal Constraints: The Takeaway
    34. Notes
    35. Chapter 8: The Time Constraint: When Preferences Run Down the Clock
    36. Material Constraints Versus Terrorism
    37. Material Constraints Versus COVID-19
    38. Non-linearity and COVID-19
    39. Gargantuan Stimulus: Nuthin' But a G Thang
    40. Time is the Achilles' Heel of the Constraint Method
    41. Notes
  6. Part Three: OPERATIONALIZATION
    1. Chapter 9: The Art of the Net Assessment
    2. Three Lenses of Geopolitical Forecasting
    3. Net Assessment: The Bayesian Prior
    4. India Net Assessment: An Investment Thesis Built on Mean Reversion
    5. What Is Keeping India from Mean Reverting?
    6. Underinvested: India's Fulcrum Constraint
    7. Why Is Investment the Fulcrum Constraint?
    8. India Net Assessment: Investment Implications
    9. War in the Middle East: Net Assessment
    10. Net Assessment: The Takeaway
    11. Notes
    12. Chapter 10: Game Theory – It's Not a Game!
    13. Before You Play the Game, Set the Gameboard
    14. Beware Simplistic Games
    15. Game Theory: The Takeaway
    16. Notes
    17. Chapter 11: Geopolitical Alpha
    18. Chocolate Labrador Brian Versus Marine Le Pen
    19. “So, You Want to Go Long Socialism and Short Capitalism”
    20. Geopolitical Alpha: The Takeaway
    21. Notes
    22. Chapter 12: Conclusion
    23. Note
  7. Acknowledgements
    1. Note
  8. Bibliography
  9. Index
  10. End User License Agreement
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