Lotta Moberg

Lotta Moberg is the author of The Political Economy of Special Economic Zones and co-founder of the investment firm ViviFi Ventures and of Wealth Horizons, where she is head of investment research and strategy, applying Austrian economics and political economy to questions of development, tax policy and global markets.

The Political Economy of Special Economic Zones, published by Routledge, is one of the few academic treatments of why zones succeed or fail, and its argument is uncomfortable for enthusiasts. Zones work when they are a way of testing reforms that can later be generalised, and fail when they become a way of granting privileges to well-connected firms while the rest of the economy is left alone. The difference is political rather than technical.

She spent some seven years as a global macro analyst at William Blair in Chicago before co-founding firms of her own, where she invests using the framework she uses in her research: that institutions, politics and policy shape long-horizon returns more reliably than growth forecasts do. She serves on the board of trustees of the CFA Institute Research Foundation, where she works on research and marketing. She writes and speaks widely on the subject, and holds a doctorate in economics from George Mason University and the CFA charter. She joined the board of trustees of the CFA Institute Research Foundation in 2019, hosts its Financial Thought Exchange podcast, and sits on the Tipolis advisory council.