Waterfall Charts in R
It is often hard to wrap your head around the finances of organizations and the unusual accounting rules of public organizations make that even more difficult. When I read The McKinsey Way several years ago, I saw the value in using waterfall charts to analyze and understand the finances of public organizations. So I created functions for plotting waterfall charts using both traditional and grid graphics in R. Here’s an example using the sample data from The McKinsey Way:
More advanced examples are available in the package demo. I had intended to write the documentation and submit it as a code snippet to the Journal of Statistical Software. However, I have yet to actually write the documentation and it is probably not appropriate for JSS, anyway. Otherwise, the package is complete and is now available from CRAN. The source code is available from Bitbucket. The code repository contains the outline of an Eclipse project using StatET, which I recommend for working with this and all other R packages.
Review of the Columbia Association’s Fiscal Targets
The Financial Advisory Committee has Recommenced
Last night, the Columbia Association’s Financial Advisory Committee held its first meeting of the term and we introduced three new members. Those members have a diverse background and strenghen our expertise in financial analysis.
This year, the Financial Advisory Committee will be reviewing two key questions for the Columbia Association’s Board of Directors. The first is recommend measurement target for financial performance of the organization, particularly with regard to the outstanding debt position. As the Committee has experience in establishing measures for the organization, this is a natural outgrowth of that work.
The second question the Financial Advisory Committee will address is to consider and respond to a proposed business plan being developed by the Columbia Association’s senior staff. The proposed business plan is not yet available and will be addressed when ready.
Both topics this year are quite exciting and give the Financial Advisory Committee some red meat to chew on following a few lean years. I look forward to diving into these and am delighted to be working with new Committee members.
Transatlantic Coöperation in Financial Regulation
On Monday night, the Atlantic Council of the United States hosted European Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services Charlie McCreevy for a discussion on transatlanic coöperation in financial market regulation. I got to drop in.
Commissioner McCreevy discussed European efforts to reform both the credit derivatives market and credit ratings agencies. The most interesting point the Commissioner brought up was the threat the current financial crisis has been on the integrity of the single market, despite the fact Eurozone members have weathered the crisis better than non-Eurozone European nations. European Parliament elections are this week and, according to polls, faith in Europe among Europeans is reaching twenty year lows.
On a related note, I picked up and read a copy of the Atlantic Council’s policy paper, “Transatlatnic Leadership for the New Global Economy” which, from 2007, is delightfully antediluvian in its approach to both global economic survelliance and the IMF in general.
The Atlantic Council has made an MP3 of the discussion available.
