PSD Blog points to couple of developments in the field of access to finance. Hope something useful comes out of it. And it is not just hanky-panky stuff.
Archive for October 14th, 2009
Financial Access in vogue
October 14, 2009A note on Financial Market Utilities
October 14, 2009Chicago Fed Economists have an excellent discussion on Financial Market Utilities (FMU). FMUs are companies that facilitate clearing and settlement in financial markets. Be it bond, currency or equity markets, FMUs play a very important understateed role in financial markets.
A must read. IT tells you a bit about everything on FMUs – history, functions, names of key FMUs in US etc.
Cinema and financial markets- an analogy
October 14, 2009I came across this nice short crisp paper by Lasse Heje Pedersen of NUY. He says:
The dangers of shouting fire in a crowded theater are well understood, but the dangers of rushing to the exit in the financial markets are more complex. Yet, the two events share several features, and I analyze why people crowd into theaters and trades, why they run, what determines the risk, whether to return to the theater or trade when the dust settles, and how much to pay for assets (or tickets) in light of this risk. These theoretical considerations shed light on the recent global liquidity crisis and, in particular, the quant event of 2007.
I liked the comparison with the theatre. It is a useful analogy which one can use to explain this crisis to freshers.
Acknowledging Economic Bloggers
October 14, 2009Roving Bandit has this inspiring post:
I’ve just been reading the latest draft of a paper by Miguel, Saiegh and Satyanath which measures the correlation between violence on the football (soccer) field in European leagues (yellow/red cards) and violence in a player’s home country (civil war). Blattman blogged about an earlier draft a while ago.
Great paper, but what caught my eye were the acknowledgements:
“We are grateful to Dan Altman, Ray Fisman, Matias Iaryczower, Abdul Nouri, Dani Rodrik, seminar participants at Stanford, UCSD, UCLA, IPES, and at the 4th Annual HiCN Workshop at Yale, and a host of anonymous bloggers for useful comments, and Dan Hartley, Teferi Mergo, Melanie Wasserman and Tom Zeitzoff for excellent research assistance. All errors remain our own.”
Wow. I have noted quite a few blogposts of Paul Krugman in other papers mentioned as a reference/point of debate etc. But then he is Paul Krugman.
THis is excellent for economic bloggers like me who try and write extensively on economic research done around the world. I know it will be difficult for me to ever write a paper which will be mentioned as a reference in any of the top papers. However, it will be great if any of the blogposts can make an impact towards betterment of a paper.
P.S.
Papers like these interest me quite abit. But haven’t got anytime.
Mostly Economics 
