What we’re reading (12/16)

• “A Quant Winter’s Tale” (Financial Times). “[W]hat went so horribly wrong for many factor-focused quant funds like AQR from 2018? Answers vary, but a few common theories have emerged. Some think that investment strategies based even on copious amounts of historical data cannot work for perpetuity — market regimes come and go, and as anomalies become well-known, they often disappear.”

• “Despite Record Home Prices, Housing Is About To Drag Inflation Down” (Wall Street Journal). “So it might seem strange that shelter inflation is expected to slow. But shelter inflation is based on rents, not housing prices, and rent growth over the past year has fallen to 3.3% through November, according to Zillow, lower than the average during 2018-19.”

• “Baseball Star Shohei Ohtani's New Contract Is A Massive Tax Avoidance Scheme. Nice!” (Reason). “By taking most of his pay in what's effectively a fixed annuity rather than getting it all in his paycheck, Ohtani could save as much as $98 million in state taxes if he relocates out of California by 2034, according to an analysis by the California Center for Jobs & the Economy.”

• “Argentina’s New President Javier Milei Does Away With Culture Ministry 24 Hours After Taking Office” (The Art Newspaper). “It only took a day into his term as Argentina’s new president for Javier Milei to get rid of the Ministry of Culture. Milei was inaugurated on 10 December, and the following day, the boisterously libertarian economist and former television commentator fulfilled his campaign promise with typical bravado.”

• “Surge In Number Of ‘Extremely Productive’ Authors Concerns Scientists” (Nature). “Up to four times more researchers pump out more than 60 papers a year than less than a decade ago. Saudi Arabia and Thailand saw the sharpest uptick in the number of such scientists over the past few years, according to a preprint posted on bioRxiv on 24 November. The increase in these ‘extremely productive’ authors raises concerns that some researchers are resorting to dubious methods to publish extra papers.”