| dc.description | Over the past 12 months the sovereign debt of the USA, as well as Spain, Greece, Portugal and other nations primarily in the Eurozone, were downgraded. Sovereign bonds have generally been considered safe securities, especially of OECD countries, but that picture is now quickly changing. Recent reports have shown the recent trends in rising costs of key commodities,1 reversing more than two decades of stable or falling prices. Countries are therefore seeing their import bills for both biological resources (fish, timber, wheat and other soft commodities) and fossil fuels rise. While the drivers of these increases are complex, it is clear that ecosystems and the services they provide such as timber, fish, crops, livestock and CO2 sequestration, underpin our economies in a significant way. It is therefore vitally important to understand how changes in trends in the use and availability of natural resources can affect national economic health in the 21st century. Do capital markets sufficiently account for risks associated with changes in ecosystems and the availability of natural resources? Are such factors reflected in the assessment of fixed income securities with medium- to long-term maturities? These questions are at the heart of the E-RISC project. | en_US |
