About Cournot Centre The Cournot Centre was co-founded by Nobel Laureate Robert Solow, and is an independent research institute based in France. It is supported by the Cournot Foundation, which operates under the Fondation de France. The Centre adopted the name of pioneering economist, mathematician and philosopher Antoine Augustin Cournot (1801–77).
About Risk Economics Risk Economics provides advisory services at the intersection of commercial business-process engineering and risk engineering with a particular focus on coupling commercial reinsurance and financial technology, through the rigorous application of agent-based, demographic, and statistical methodologies to microeconomic and macroeconomic analytics.
Samantha Kappagoda was invited to participate in a fireside panel discussion at the Council for Economic Education (CEE) National Economics Challenge (NEC) on May 21, 2021. Attendees included NEC participants, judges and members of the CEE community. This panel followed the NEC semi-finals. The final round took place on May 22-24, 2021.
Mark Zandi, Chief Economist, Moody’s Analytics, opened the discussion with comments on the current state of the global economy. This was followed by the fireside panel, moderated by Nan Morrison, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Council for Economic Education. Samantha Kappagoda’s fellow panelists were:
Samantha Kappagoda is Chief Economist and Co-Founder of Risk Economics. She previously served three terms on the CEE Board of Directors.
The CEE National Economics Challenge is the country’s only economics competition of its type for high school students. The NEC competition, established in 2000, incorporates questions on microeconomic and macroeconomic principles as well as knowledge of the global economy. In most years, over 20,000 participate in the NEC, which is one of CEE’s key initiatives focusing public attention on the benefits of economic literacy.
About the Council for Economic Education The Council for Economic Education’s (CEE) mission is to equip K-12 students with the tools and knowledge of personal finance and economics to improve decisions making. CEE has carried out its mission for over 70 years by providing resources and training to K-12 educators. Nearly two-thirds of the teachers that are engaged with CEE are based in low to moderate income schools. All resources and programs are developed by educators and delivered by their 188 affiliates across all states. CEE reaches over 50,000 teachers a year through in-person professional development and those teachers, in turn, reach approximately 5 million students throughout the country. For more information, visit: https://www.councilforeconed.org.
Samantha Kappagoda, Chief Economist and Co-Founder of Risk Economics was interviewed for Compass Lexecon’s International Women’s Day 2021 Advice from Leading Women video. In honor of International Women’s Day 2021 Compass Lexecon interviewed several high-profile, successful women to provide advice to other women based on their careers and professional experiences.
In addition to Samantha Kappagoda, other interviewees included:
Amelia Fletcher, Professor of Competition Policy, Nottingham Business School and Deputy Director at the Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia
Christine Wilson, Commissioner, Federal Trade Commission
Andrea Kramer, Partner, McDermott Will & Emery
Jessica Yellen, Former Chief White House Correspondent, CNN
Penelope Papandropoulos, Cabinet Member, DG Comp, European Commission
Christa Davies, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, AON
Christine Varney, Chair of Antitrust Practice, Cravath and Former U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust
Bianna Golodryga, Senior Global Affairs Analyst, CNN
Georgia Nugent, President, Illinois Wesleyan University
To view the Compass Lexecon video, visit: https://vimeo.com/520945477. Samantha Kappagoda’s interview segment appears at 6:25.
About Compass Lexecon
Compass Lexecon (CL) is one of the world’s leading economic consulting firms, providing law firms, corporations, and government clients with clear analysis of complex issues. CL has been involved in a broad spectrum of matters related to economics and finance – providing critical insight in legal and regulatory proceedings, strategic decisions, and public policy debates. CL experience and expertise apply to virtually any question of economics, in virtually any context of the law or business, and in any industry.
Barbara Novick, Vice-Chair and Co-Founder, BlackRock
As Lead for the Risk Economics® macroeconomic and portfolio strategy advisory practice, Samantha Kappagoda provides bespoke advisory services as well as research and development (R&D) of rigorous analytics with applications to large-scale, real-world modeling and surveillance of global macroeconomic trends, socioeconomic and demographic conditions, and geopolitical events. Her areas of expertise include currency, fixed income, commodity and capital markets activity, as well as business cycle dynamics, econometric time-series and longitudinal analyses of consumer behavior, labor markets, wealth and income distribution, housing, population and immigration, political risk and international trade, resource allocation, environment, health, aging and retirement.
Samantha Kappagoda also advises research activities at RiskEcon® Lab for Decision Metrics, established in 2011 at Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences NYU, in order to apply a range of computational methods to analyze commercial, consumer and population-related societal trends. She is also Visiting Scholar at Courant Institute, and associated with the Social Media and Political Participation Lab (SMaPP) NYU, an interdisciplinary collaboration that investigates the relationships between social media and political behavior.
CEE is the leading organization in the United States that focuses on the economic and financial education of students from kindergarten through high school, and they have been doing so for over 65 years. They do this by educating the educators: providing the curriculum tools, the pedagogical support, and the community of peers that instruct, inspire, and guide. All resources and programs are developed by educators and delivered by CEE’s national network of affiliates, with over 240 across the country, in addition to online content.
Samantha Kappagoda, Chief Economist and Co-Founder of Risk Economics was invited to speak on a panel jointly sponsored by 100 Women in Hedge Funds, Council for Economic Education (CEE) and Schulte Roth & Zabel. The topic of the event was The Economics and Psychology of Individual and Household Financial Decision Making, and was held during Financial Literacy Month. The other panelist was Brigitte Madrian, Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School. The event was held at the New York office of Schulte Roth & Zabel on April 28, 2015.
As Lead for the Risk Economics® macroeconomic and portfolio strategy advisory practice, Samantha Kappagoda provides bespoke advisory services as well as research and development (R&D) of rigorous analytics with applications to large-scale, real-world modeling and surveillance of global macroeconomic trends, socioeconomic and demographic conditions, and geopolitical events. Her areas of expertise include currency, fixed income, commodity and capital markets activity, as well as business cycle dynamics, econometric time-series and longitudinal analyses of consumer behavior, labor markets, wealth and income distribution, housing, population and immigration, political risk and international trade, resource allocation, environment, health, aging and retirement.
Event Sponsors 100 Women in Hedge Funds is a global, practitioner-driven non-profit organization serving over 13,000 alternative investment management investors and professionals through educational, professional leverage and philanthropic initiatives. Formed in 2001, 100 Women in Hedge Funds has hosted close to 500 industry education events globally, connected more than 250 senior women through Peer Advisory Groups and raised over $36 million for philanthropic causes in the areas of women’s health, education and mentoring.
The Council for Economic Education is the leading organization in the United States that focuses on the economic and financial education of students from kindergarten through high school, and they have been doing so for over 65 years. They do this by educating the educators: providing the curriculum tools, the pedagogical support, and the community of peers that instruct, inspire, and guide. All resources and programs are developed by educators and delivered by CEE’s national network of affiliates, with over 240 across the country, in addition to online content.
Schulte Roth & Zabel (SRZ) provides the investment management community with sophisticated legal counsel from offices in New York, Washington, D.C. and London. Working in tandem with other practice areas in the firm, the Investment Management Group has unparalleled experience advising hedge fund managers in all aspects and stages of their business including fund structuring and marketing, investments, compliance and litigation, and management issues. With a deep understanding of the hedge fund industry from both a legal and a business perspective, SRZ has been involved in the formation of every type of hedge fund, from long/short equity funds and event-driven funds to emerging markets funds and commodity pools. As one of the premier law firms serving the alternative investment industry, SRZ represents over half of the world’s largest hedge funds.
David K.A. Mordecai filed an expert report on behalf of Risk Economics® client Samsung. Dr. Mordecai’s expert report opined on the merger dispute between Samsung and Microsoft, and the patent assignment of Nokia mobile devices.
In a brief court filing, Microsoft and Samsung agreed to voluntarily dismiss with prejudice all claims and counterclaims. The companies issued a joint statement that was published on each company’s respective blogs Monday.
“Samsung and Microsoft are pleased to announce that they have ended their contract dispute in U.S. court as well as the [International Chamber of Commerce] arbitration,” the statement said. “Terms of the agreement are confidential.”
Dr. Mordecai worked with a team of economists led by Samantha Kappagoda, Chief Economist of Risk Economics®, working with attorneys at O’Melveny & Myers LLP, including George A. Riley, Andrew Frackman, Gary Svirsky, Brad M. Elias, Jeffrey A.N. Kopczynski, Ryan K. Yagura, Ian Simmons and John Kappos.
The case is Microsoft Corp et al. v. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., case number 1:14-cv-06039, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, before U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff.
David K.A. Mordecai is President and Co-Founder of Risk Economics, a New York City based advisory firm. Risk Economics specializes in the application of computational economics to the proprietary development and scalable implementation of robust modeling and data analytic frameworks for valuation, strategic and systemic risk analysis, and dynamic asset-liability management.
As Lead for the Risk Economics® litigation and arbitration advisory practice, David Mordecai serves as an expert on loss causation and economic damages related to market structure, financial institutions governance, and complex issues related to finance, economics and market standards and practices within securities, derivatives, reinsurance, and commodities markets, as well as market structure within a broad range of non-financial industry sectors. His expertise includes industrial and financial engineering, the valuation of fixed income securities and structured products, including over-the-counter derivatives (in particular fixed income and credit derivatives), complex insurance and reinsurance liabilities, as well as asset liability and risk management models and practices. Having testified extensively at deposition, trial, arbitration and international arbitration, he has been admitted as an expert in federal, state and county courts, and cited favorably in court decisions.
