Barter, Auction and Technology Implications for Asset Management

Barter, Auction and Technology Implications for Asset Management

• Campbell R. Harvey

• Duke University, Durham, NC USA

• National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge MA USA

• http://www.duke.edu/~charvey

Future of Cash Management: -----Technology

• We have seen exponential growth in exponential growth of computing!

• Growth factors:

• Shorter distance for electrons to travel (transistor die size gets smaller)

• Greater number of transistors

Future of Cash Management: -----Technology

• New growth factors:

• “Pipelining” -- Multiple calculations performed at the same time (parallel processing)

• Hence, conservative forecast would be to slow to exponential growth

Future of Cash Management: -----Technology

• Human brain:

• 100 billion neurons

• 1000 connections between each neuron

• 100 trillion connections, each capable of simultaneous calculation

Future of Cash Management: -----Technology

• Human brain:

• Strength:

• Massively parallel

• Weakness:

• Very slow, only 200 calculations per second.

• Explains why brains does a great job at operations that require massively parallel, such as pattern recognition.

Future of Cash Management: -----Technology

• Human brain:

• At 200 calculations per second and 100 trillion connections, implies 20 million billion calculations per second.

Future of Cash Management: -----Technology

• Currently, we can do 2 billion calculation per second for about $1000.

Future of Cash Management: -----Technology

• August 15, 2001

• Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI) revealed a supercomputer capable of 12.8 trillion calculations per second with plan for 100 trillion by 2005

• At this rate, 28,000 trillion by 2016