This article takes a look at the development of listed private equity funds and the empirical data that shows the performance of the asset class. It shows that while the idea of listed private equity is not new, it is still relatively unfamiliar to academics and investors alike. It identifies some of the challenges posed by traditional private equity, and then demonstrates how listed private equity deals with—and somehow resolves—some limitations. This article also discusses asset allocation, investment activities in listed private equity, and private equity indices.

In response to the unusually high levels of price volatility during the world food price crisis of 2007/2008, US and EU regulators have introduced position limits that aim to protect commodity markets from exposure to excess speculation. Such regulatory initiatives presuppose that excess speculation is indeed responsible for excess volatility. Our results debunk this presupposition and show the opposite effect: speculative activity reduces price volatility, particularly during times of distress. Our findings are based on a cross-section of wheat futures contracts, traded at five different commodity exchanges with various degrees of speculative activity. Volatility is estimated based on a Conditional Autoregressive Range Model (CARR), which is further augmented with exogenous excess-speculation shocks (CARRX). These models capture herding, feedback and noise trading, and a threshold version (TCARRX) identifies regimes in which the anatomy of the volatility process changes according to the level of excess speculation. Our findings support Working's hypothesis that a certain level of excess speculation is essential for a wellfunctioning market.

The phrase 'private equity' became widespread in the late 1980s following major buyout fund activity. What has been neglected for some time is the existence of listed private equity -an exposure through a share in a private equity company traded on a stock exchange. While the listed market is small compared to its unlisted counterpart, it benefits from a variety of advantages that make this form of private equity worth further consideration. But is public private equity a contradiction in terms? We conclude that although there are different organizational structures between listed and unlisted private equity, an investment in listed private equity exhibits similar or even equivalent characteristics to an investment in unlisted private equity. Finally, we present an empirical overview of the listed private equity market.

Glacier shrinking and the development of postglacial ecosystems related to anthropogenic climate change is one of the fastest ongoing ecosystem shifts, with paramount ecological and societal cascading consequences globally (Huss et al., 2017; Milner et al., 2017; Cauvy and Dangles, 2019; IPCC, 2021). Yet, no complete spatial analysis exists to quantify or anticipate this major changeover (Ficetola et al., 2021; Zimmer et al., 2022). Here we model glacier responses to climate projections until 2100 and subglacial terrain to explore the ecological trajectory of all glaciated areas, outside the Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets. Depending on climate change magnitude, glaciers could lose less than one quarter to half of their area by 2100. Mainly composed of terrestrial, then marine and freshwater areas, deglaciated areas could range from the equivalent surface of Nepal to Finland. Ecological conditions in deglaciated areas will remain extreme in some regions, offering refuges for cold-adapted species, but become mild in others, favouring biogeochemical processes, primary productivity and generalist species. This unprecedented travel into the future of cold regions shows that glaciers and postglacial ecosystems have key roles to play to face climate change, biodiversity loss and freshwater scarcity. Less than a third of these vulnerable common goods, barely considered in nature conservation policies (IPBES, 2019), are located within protected areas. We therefore call to urgently enhance both climate change mitigation and the in-situ protection of these key ecosystems to secure their existence, functioning and values.