What difficulties for finance today?
We seek to understand a number of new developments and mechanisms in finance: where can traditional financial analysis run into problems ? The link between finance and economic growth is likely to become tenuous, as it is realised that financial markets, particularly equity markets, are no longer used to finance the economy; and since banks may be in trouble for a long time as a result of the very low interest rates; The ultra-expansionary monetary policies completely change the analysis of economic agents' debt and solvency. They also create distortions in financial asset prices , which have the serious consequence of eliminating the information contained in financial market equilibrium prices while no longer allowing a normal calculation of fundamental asset values; Corporate risk premia have risen sharply, whether we look at them in equity markets or in corporate accounts. This development raises an interpretation problem ( what accounts for the rise in corporate risk premia, is this even really a risk premium?), a corporate valuation problem and a monetary policy transmission problem .