AD712 Term Paper Changes in Institutions and Capital Markets Following the Financial Crisis

Beginning even before the full impact of the 2007-2009 (and continuing) financial crisis was appreciated, governments, financial regulators, and the financial institutions themselves have implemented major changes in the practices of those institutions. These changes continue and will have a dramatic impact on the ways that the finance industry operates. These changes include (but are certainly not limited to):

· The Dodd-Frank Bill in the US

· The Basel III capital standards which will significantly increase the amount and type of capital that banks are required to hold

· Intervention by central banks to support the liquidity of financial institutions by purchasing securities from or lending against those securities as collateral to the institutions (which also functions as a monetary policy device to increase the money supply and maintain low interest rate)

· Nationalizing or forcing the merger of financial institutions

· Separating commercial banking and investment banking operations

· Limiting the size or market share of institutions

· Restricting commercial and investment banks from trading for their own account

· Requiring all (or a greater proportion of) derivatives trades to be conducted over listed exchanges

· Restructuring how LIBOR (or a replacement interest rate benchmark) is calculated

· Forcing junior and senior bondholders (and depositors in the case of Cyprus) to share in the losses when a bank is bailed out

· Limiting or banning certain practices such as short selling of the equity of financial Institutions

· Bank lending practices, including predatory lending

· Limiting or intervening in the foreclosure of defaulted mortgage loans

· Restricting the use of ratings developed by the commercial rating agencies such as Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch

· Restructuring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as other GSEs

For your paper you are to select one of these changes and analyze it. Select an issue (or part of an issue) which is possible to you to sufficiently grasp and analyze. For example, the Dodd Frank Act is much too broad, at 1000+ pages, to tackle, so taking one aspect of the Act, such as the so-called Volker Rule, or the limitation on credit ratings might be more reasonable to tackle. Your selection can extend beyond this list, to examine other actions and can include those in markets outside the US, subject to the approval of the instructor.

Papers should be between 12 and 15 pages double spaced, and 15 should be considered a reasonable maximum. Papers MUST include a bibliography of sources cited. Any direct or indirect quoting or paraphrasing of other material MUST be footnoted. While facts and information will underlie the discussion, the key to this assignment is your analysis and conclusions regarding the topic. The analysis should at a minimum include:

· A description of the problem or issue it was intended to address

· Who, and to what degree, is affected by the action? In a positive or negative way? For example, restrictions on lending behavior affects the lenders themselves, the potential borrowers, and potentially the economy as a whole.

· What has been the result of that action? Some may not be fully implemented but actions may already have been taken to address them, for example, increases in required bank capital under Basel III will not be required for several years but banks have already taken action to increase their capital).

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Papers are to be RESEARCH PAPERS. Remember that work that you use from other authors MUST be referenced and papers MUST include a bibliography. Since it is assumed that you are not an authority on the topic that you are writing on it is expected that this paper is an overview of many different sources of information. These must be contributed to the author using the APA format. This is your paper and not the cut and paste of someone else's work. The internet has led to a false sense of what research is all about. Those new to research tend to think that it means spending an afternoon surfing the internet and then an afternoon cutting from material available. Keep in mind the internet is: 1. Not quality oriented as it has good stuff and not so good stuff but the internet does not know the difference and 2. The internet is NOT a sole source location. In particular, sources such as Wikipedia are the works of individual submitters which are not reviewed. Thus while many entries provide excellent information, some are fundamentally flawed or just plain wrong. Keep in mind that the Boston University Library as well as your local, state and the national US Library of Congress have extensive on-line services. USE THEM.