Economists Build Libor Time Machines as Losses Puzzle Investors

Paula Ramada, who has a doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says she can calculate how much investors lost from banks’ alleged rigging of benchmark interest rates. Now all she needs is funding, a team of analysts and weeks to run the numbers.

Ramada is among a growing number of mathematicians, analysts and researchers trying to tackle one of the toughest questions to emerge from the Libor scandal: If banks manipulated rates tied to $300 trillion in instruments such as mortgages and student loans, how much did it cost investors?