Tag: WFA-CFAR

The Distributed Blockchain Conference is the first global event focusing on blockchain technology applications for both trade networks and financial services. We are fortunate to be able to host such a groundbreaking conference at Washington University in Emerson Auditorium next Tuesday, June 14^th  from 8-5 p.m. This conference will bring together the industry’s leading blockchain technology companies with major enterprises to brainstorm how the new technology will disrupt and optimize trade networks and financial service. Still on the fence? Here are four reasons you should add The Distributed Blockchain Conference to your summer schedule:

1. Delve into the impact of blockchain on financial services and trade networks

Blockchains are the most revolutionary technology development since the Internet. Money can be transferred cheaply and more efficiently on a global scale, removing the middle man from the equation when making transitions.

2. Real use cases will demonstrate how blockchain technology can provide efficiency gains and cost savings

Forty of the world’s top financial firms are already experimenting with this technology and this number is expected to continue to grow. Fluent, a financial operating network with WashU roots, will be demonstrating their products tracking supply chain and offering product and proof-of-concept demos, helping you understand how some of the largest firms can embrace this new technology.

3. Network with the innovative leaders 

CEOs from the world’s leading blockchain startups and executives from the world’s most innovative corporations will come together to reimagine international trade networks. The event is primarily sponsored by SixThirty and BTC Media, which are both large contributors to the fintech industry. There are 45 speakers at the event, including Brian Behlendorf, the Executive Director of Hyperledger Project at The Linux Foundation; David Bailey, the CEO of BTC Media; Jeff Garzic, the co-founder of Bloq, and many more.

4. This is the first blockchain conference of this magnitude to be held in a non-coastal city

St. Louis is the first Midwest city to be selected to host a conference about blockchain, and for good reason: Home to many startups, elite colleges, and nationally-recognized fintech company SixThirty, St. Louis is a vital logistics and fintech hub. This conference offers you the rare opportunity to learn more about this revolutionary technology and network with some of the largest names in this growing industry.

Learn more and register today!

Please use discount code for WU students- DISTRIBUTEDWASHU

Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis is hosting seven of the nation’s top finance scholars for an intensive, four-day program geared for doctoral students and university faculty.

More than 130 participants from across the nation and around the world will gather on the Danforth Campus Aug. 12-15 for a program called “Summer School: Financial Intermediation and Contracting,” a chance to learn from some of the brightest and best-regarded minds in the field.

The program will cover a variety of topics related to financial intermediation and financial contracting, with each speaker presenting half-day lectures.

The event is organized by The Finance Theory Group and the Wells Fargo Advisors Center for Finance and Accounting Research at Washington University.

Speakers include:

• Peter DeMarzo, PhD, the Mizuho Financial Group Professor of Finance at Stanford University;
• Douglas Diamond, PhD, the Merton H. Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago;
• Philip Dybvig, PhD, the Boatmen’s Bancshares Professor of Banking and Finance at Olin;
• Itay Goldstein, PhD, the Joel S. Ehrenkranz Family Professor of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania;
• Gustavo Manso, PhD, the William A. and Betty H. Hasler Chair in New Enterprise Development at the University of California-Berkeley;
• Adriano Rampini, PhD, the John D. Forsyth Professor of Finance and Economics at Duke University; and
• Anjan Thakor, PhD, the John E. Simon Professor of Finance at Olin.

“We are excited to host this one-of-a-kind event,” said Ohad Kadan, PhD, professor of finance at Olin, who chairs the organizing committee.

“The ‘Summer School’ brings together top researchers in the area of financial economics along with faculty and students from leading schools in the U.S., Europe, and Asia,” Kadan said. “Participants will get a chance to update their knowledge on recent advances in the field and will also share their research with their peers in evening sessions of contributed papers.

“Olin Business School’s finance faculty are world-renowned in the areas of financial intermediation and financial contracting. We are delighted to have the opportunity to host such a prominent event.”

– By Erika Ebsworth-Goold, WUSTL Newsroom

Olin Professor Emeritus, Nicholas Dopuch, a legend in the field of accounting, was recently interviewed for the Journal of Accounting Research (JAR) about the nearly two decades he served as editor of the journal published by the Accounting Research Center at the University of Chicago where he taught prior to coming to Washington University in 1983.

Richard Frankel, the Beverly & James Hance Professor of Accounting at Olin interviewed Prof. Dopuch and produced this video.

In addition to the Journal of Accounting Research, Dopuch has served on the editorial board of several professional publications. A prolific writer, he has published more than 30 research papers and four books and monographs.

Dopuch has received the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Award twice and an Outstanding Auditing Educator Award, both from the American Accounting Association. In 2001, he was inducted into the Accounting Hall of Fame.

Prof. Dopuch was widely credited with revitalizing Olin’s doctoral program and for instituting high academic and research standards in the accounting program.

He earned a bachelor’s degree from Indiana State University (1957) and master’s (1959) and doctoral (1961) degrees from the University of Illinois, all in accounting. Prior to his tenure at Washington University, Dopuch taught at the universities of Chicago and Illinois and Indiana University.

New research reveals the dynamics that influence how bank capital structure affects credit monitoring. The study titled, “Who Monitors the Monitor: Bank Capital Structure and Borrower Monitoring,” details how researchers measure the effects of a bank’s capital structure on its credit monitoring, and delivers new evidence explaining how government safety nets that enhance banking protections affect bank capital structure, and, in turn, influence bank monitoring and risk-taking behavior.

The research co-authors are Olin’s Anjan Thakor, and Sudarshan Jayaraman, associate professor of accounting at Simon Business School at the University of Rochester .

The research highlights four main findings:
* Banks take on less equity and more debt when creditor rights increase and the reverse when creditor rights decrease.
* This indicates that bank equity appears to provide stronger monitoring incentives to banks and that they need less of this mechanism when there is a lower need for monitoring.
* These effects are not driven by the supply side (i.e., bank creditors are more willing to lend to the bank when creditor rights increase).
* The increase in bank leverage increases the bank’s risk-taking appetite, especially when government guarantees are in place.

The co-authors studied legal reforms in 14 countries across Europe and Asia during the 1990s and early 2000s.

The researchers conclude that stronger creditor rights tend to increase the bank’s cost of debt, particularly when governments offer a strong guarantee to banks. These results indicate that stronger banking rights needs are not always better and that legal remedies that strengthen banking rights can bring about unintended consequences as banks incur higher debt and assume greater risks.

Read the complete news release from Simon Business School.

Related research from Anjan Thakor.

Image: Flickr Creative Commons: MNB: ninety odd years of banking 1825-1916, Claire T. Carney Library, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

Anjan Thakor sends a warning to the banking industry in an article published on the website, The Conversation.  

Prof. Thakor draws on his research into the conditions and causes of the last two major financial crises to suggest that we may be heading in the same direction, again.

His research reveals that the longer a lending boom lasts, the more trouble it foreshadows. Thakor’s latest research paper, “Lending Booms, Smart Bankers and Financial Crises,” will be published in the American Economic Review 2015.

Read Thakor’s article on The Conversation here. The site is “a pilot project [launched] in October 2014. It is an independent source of news and views from the academic and research community, delivered direct to the public.”

New research from Anjan Thakor, John E. Simon Professor of Finance, identifies conditions and activity in the banking industry that point to an impending financial crisis. In an interview with Steven Richmond editor-in-chief of BadCredit.org, Thakor discusses his new research:

Thakor identified several events that could mean a financial collapse is on its way:

• A long period of low defaults and sustained profitability in banking
• Politicians pressuring banks to lend more aggressively
• Aggressive growth in bank balance sheets coupled with a lowering of capital ratios
• Shortening debt maturity in bank borrowing
• An asset price boom in any given sector banks lend to (i.e., real estate)
• A financial system flush with liquidity, due in part to relaxed monetary policies

“The model is not about identifying the exact timing of the next crisis, but the pre-crisis conditions it identifies match what we had in the last crisis and previous ones,” Thakor said.

Anjan Thakor

Thakor’s research paper, “Lending Booms, Smart Bankers and Financial Crises,” will be published in the American Economic Review 2015.

Image: Banking, Got Credit, Flickr Creative Commons