Oxford Odyssey

Author: cowleycorporateclimbers

  • Climate Change – explained in economics

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    Tragedy of the commons If a business was pumping mercury into a river depended upon by a village, you would hear collective outrage. The affected village has a strong interest in stopping the pollution, and will beat on the war drums to spur the rest of us into action.  Carbon diffuses through Brownian motion, distributing…

  • Embracing uncertainty

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    One of the biggest realisations after leaving school is this: no one has all the answers. In school, the problems were often predefined, and the answers could be found in textbooks or from teachers. At work, it’s a completely different ballgame. Many challenges you face are original, uncharted, and require you to carve out a…

  • Crime in London

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    As an international student, I’ve come to cherish the relative safety of Oxford. Life here is calm, and being a student town is just peaceful. Even the clubs are friendly. The worst I’ve encountered was an older man hurling a racist slur at me—disheartening, but ultimately harmless in comparison to the more violent acts of…

  • Game Theory

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    Game theory is about anticipating the reactions of the other party and making your move based on that reaction, projecting it out into the future. However, it is often reduced to iconic examples like the Prisoner’s Dilemma, a scenario so frequently cited that it risks trivialising the depth and breadth of this field. While the…

  • Mergers & Acquisitions : Why it hasn’t been great

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    I blame both Spring Week and Summer Associate recruiting for the number of times I told an interviewer that M&A was my passion and intellectual calling. I had to read up on so many deals – looking at each bank’s transactions and picking one to express my amazement at the genius of such a deal.…

  • The value proposition of NFTs – Non-rivalry

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    Despite a staggering increase in interest and valuations of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), there is growing doubt about their value as the era of easy money ends and speculation is curbed. NFTs have often been lauded as a revolutionary way to create a new digital art market, with some NFTs achieving valuations comparable to iconic works…

  • The unfair demonisation of private equity

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    When a group of my friends were planning an Easter trip to the USA, I wanted to try out Red Lobster. I’m a huge sucker for buffets and the endless shrimp offering was something that I was eager to take on as a new dietary challenge. Funnily enough, this was also one of the reasons…

  • The Signalling Problem in Higher Education: Why Gen Zs in University have it tough

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    Is a university degree still worth it? For many in Gen Z, the question feels more urgent than ever. Despite skyrocketing tuition fees and growing student debt, university enIs a university degree still worth it? For many in Gen Z, this question shakes the once-unquestionable value of further education. Many were told growing up that…

  • Finding a new job

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    Hate your job and thinking of moving on? We’ve all been there. Around the one-year mark, I found myself in the same situation. I realised I would need to make a change sooner or later, so I thought, why not sooner? But there’s a fine line between making a timely move and rushing into unemployment.…

  • Finance – Why we should look to new asset classes in our career

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    Disclaimer: This is not financial advice – just my thoughts about how I would structure my buyside career. In the early days of private equity, firms like KKR were trailblazers in a largely untapped market. Their landmark deal—the leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco in 1989—set the tone for what private equity could achieve, delivering staggering…