• FSA Library
  • Research
    • Economic research
      • Seminars

These economic seminars give us excellent opportunities to bring together academic researchers, industry practitioners and policymakers to discuss recent developments in financial economics and their potential implications for financial regulators.

We have two seminar series in the FSA. One is targeted FSA-wide, with attendance sometimes in excess of 100. The other one is targeted at a smaller audience. While the FSA wide seminars reach a wider audience, the second seminar series, with a smaller audience allow more technical discussion.

Recent Seminars

Measuring market cleanliness

Presentation about findings from Occasional Paper reporting work on efforts to measure the amount of insider trading in UK equity markets. The research detected ‘informed price movements’ ahead of a significant number of take-over announcements and trading statements.

Competition Commission economists presented the analysis they conducted for the London Stock Exchange (LSE) merger inquiry.

The Competition Commission found (somewhat controversially) that the LSE did face some competition in equities trading because of the threat of entry into the market by other exchanges. The Competition Commission also found that the proposed mergers would not directly limit this competition and that the proposed mergers should not be completely prohibited. However, the Commission also found that the proposed mergers created a risk that Euronext or Deutsche Boerse could use their control over clearing and settlement operations to create a barrier to new entrants into the UK equity trading business. For this reason the Commission proposed a set of remedies to restrict Euronext and Deutsche Boerse's control over clearing and settlement. The Commission noted that these remedies were widely supported by customers who were unenthusiastic about equities exchanges also controlling clearing and settlement operations.

New approaches to banking regulation, November 2006

A Tanaka Business School, Imperial College London, Conference supported by the FSA.

Financial Supervision Across Countries and Sectors: Challenges and New Directions
Dirk Witteveen

The Use of Internal Models in Financial Supervision
Gerhard Stahl

Principles and Rules: Never the Twain Shall Meet
Dr. Thomas Huertas

Reassessing Current Approaches to Banking Supervision
James R. Barth

Measuring Market Cleanliness
Ben Dubow and Nuno Monteiro

Further information is available on the Tanaka Business School website.

EFR Economics and Finance Seminars 2008 (version 01 July 2008)
Date	Presenter	Subject
21 May 2008	Prof. Laurent Calvet	Fight or Flight? Portfolio Balancing by Individual Investors
10 July 2008	Charles Khan (University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, and Bank of England)	Why Pay? An introduction to payments economics Abstract This seminar surveys the growing literature on payments. We begin by presenting a simple model that illustrates the essential function of payments and how this may be implemented through various arrangements. We show how the basic models of payments have been used to address a variety of microeconomic and macroeconomic policy issues. We then discuss the links between payments economics and other fields, including monetary theory, corporate finance, and industrial organization. We conclude with an overview of the empirical literature and directions for further research.
TBA	David De Meza (LSE)	TBA
TBA	Henri Servaes (LBS)	Mutual fund fees around the world Abstract Using a new database, we study fees charged by 46,580 mutual fund classes offered for sale in 18 countries, which account for about 86% of the world fund industry in 2002. We examine management fees, total expense ratios, and total shareholder costs (which include load charges). Fees vary substantially across funds and from country to country. To explain these differences, we consider fund, sponsor, and national characteristics. Fees differ by investment objectives; larger funds and fund complexes charge lower fees; fees are higher for funds distributed in more countries and funds domiciled in certain offshore locations (especially when selling into countries levying higher taxes). Substantial cross-country differences persist even after controlling for these variables. These remaining differences can be explained by a variety of factors, the most robust of which is that fund fees are lower in countries with stronger investor protection.

 

Past seminars
Date	Presenter	Subject
October 2008	Ian Marsh (CASS)	Paper: Bank Loans in a World Of CRT, Bank Behaviour With Access To Credit Risk Transfer Markets, Credit Risk Transfer and Financial Sector Performance Slides: The Impact of Innovations In Credit Risk Transfer
May 2008	Prof. Laurent Calvet	Paper: Fight or Flight? Portfolio Balancing by Individual Investors Slides: Fight or Flight? Portfolio Balancing by Individual Investors
November 2005	Dr Marcello Minenna of CONSOB	Presentation: The probabilistic procedure for market abuse detection
November 2006	Gillian Garcia	Paper: Inter-State Banking in the EU and the U.S. Similarities, Differences and Policy Lessons
May 2004	Professor Geoffrey Wood	Paper: Great Crashes In History: Have They Lessons For Today?
April 2004	Luigi Guiso	Presentation: Awareness and Stock Market Participation
March 2004	Professor Shelagh Heffernan	Presentation: UK Bank Services for SMEs: Are They Competitively Priced?
January 2004	Isaac Alfon	Presentation: An Additional Perspective for Retail Financial Products and their Regulation Paper: An Additional Perspective for Retail Financial Products and their Regulation
December 2003	London Business School	Presentation: Risks of Equity Oriented Hedge Funds
October 2003	Bank of England	Presentation: The Market for Current Accounts Paper: The Market for Current Accounts
September 2003	Barrie and Hibbert	Presentation: Economic Risks and Costs of With-Profit Business