The blueprint for Scottish independence was released a few days ago - you can read a summary here. For most people, whether or not independence is a good thing largely revolves around the economic costs and benefits of dissolving the union. What currency should an independent Scotland use? In the blueprint, Alex Salmond states that "the pound is Scotland's currency just as much as it is the rest of the UK's". See the super video below produced by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research which explains what money is, the alternatives facing an independent Scotland, and why Salmond's proposal may not be workable (hat tip: Chris Colvin).
Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, Amir Kermani, James Kwak and Todd Mitton have written a paper on whether firms connected to Timothy Geithner benefited from these connections. They do so by looking at how stocks of these firms reacted to the announcement that he was a nominee for Treasury Secretary in November 2008. They find that there were large abnormal returns for connected firms. Below is the paper's abstract and the full paper is available here . The announcement of Timothy Geithner as nominee for Treasury Secretary in November 2008 produced a cumulative abnormal return for financial firms with which he had a connection. This return was about 6% after the first full day of trading and about 12% after ten trading days. There were subsequently abnormal negative returns for connected firms when news broke that Geithner's confirmation might be derailed by tax issues. Excess returns for connected firms may reflect the perceived impact of relying on the advice of a small ne...