Infrastructure and its effects on economic growth, social welfare, and sustainability receive a great deal of attention today. There is widespread agreement that infrastructure is a key dimension of global development and that its impact reaches deep into the broader economy with important and multifaceted implications for social progress. At the same time, infrastructure finance is among the most complex and challenging areas in the global financial architecture. Ingo Walter, Professor Emeritus of Finance, Corporate Governance and Ethics at the Stern School of Business, New York University, and his team of experts tackle the issue by focussing on key findings backed by serious theoretical and empirical research. The result is a set of viable guideposts for researchers, policy-makers, students and anybody interested in the varied challenges of the contemporary economy.
This is a revision of the business of global banking. With the increased globalization of the world economy few sectors are the equal of banking and financial services in dynamism or structural change. Roy C. Smith and Ingo Walter assess this transformation-its causes, its course and its consequences. They begon by examining international commercial banking, including the issue of cross-border risk evaluation and exposure management, and the creation of a viable regulatory framework in a global competitive context. hey then undertake a parallel assessment of international investment banking, linking the two by means of a bridge chapter. Finally, they focus on the factors that determine winners and losers in these markets and explore the problems of strategic position and execution.
Nearly seventy years after the last great stock market bubble and crash, another bubble emerged and burst, despite a thick layer of regulation designed since the 1930s to prevent such things. This time the bubble was enormous, reflecting nearly twenty years of double-digit stock market growth, and its bursting had painful consequence. The search for culprits soon began, and many were discovered, including not only a number of overreaching corporations, but also their auditors, investment bankers, lawyers and indeed, their investors. In Governing the Modern Corporation, Smith and Walter analyze the structure of market capitalism to see what went wrong. They begin by examining the developments that have made modern financial markets--now capitalized globally at about $70 trillion--so enormous, so volatile and such a source of wealth (and temptation) for all players. Then they report on the evolving role and function of the business corporation, the duties of its officers and directors and the power of its Chief Executive Officer who seeks to manage the company to achieve as favorable a stock price as possible. They next turn to the investing market itself, which comprises mainly financial institutions that own about two-thirds of all American stocks and trade about 90% of these stocks. These investors are well informed, highly trained professionals capable of making intelligent investment decisions on behalf of their clients, yet the best and brightest ultimately succumbed to the bubble and failed to carry out an appropriate governance role. In what follows, the roles and business practices of the principal financial intermediaries--notably auditors and bankers--are examined in detail. All, corporations, investors and intermediaries, are found to have been infected by deep-seated conflicts of interest, which add significant agency costs to the free-market system. The imperfect, politicized role of the regulators is also explored, with disappointing results. The entire system is seen to have been compromised by a variety of bacteria that crept in, little by little, over the years and were virtually invisible during the bubble years. These issues are now being addressed, in part by new regulation, in part by prosecutions and class action lawsuits, and in part by market forces responding to revelations of misconduct. But the authors note that all of the market's professional players--executives, investors, experts and intermediaries themselves--carry fiduciary obligations to the shareholders, clients, and investors whom they represent. More has to be done to find ways for these fiduciaries to be held accountable for the correct discharge of their duties.
In 1933 and 1956, the United States sharply limited the kinds of securities activities, commercial activities, and insurance activities banks could engage in. The regulations imposed on banks back then remain in place despite profound changes in the economic environment, in the structure of the national and international financial markets, and in technology. In this span of time many industries, especially those confronting global competition, have transformed themselves dramatically in their efforts to survive and prosper. Not so in the American financial services sector, banks have largely remained stuck in an antiquated regulatory structure which has placed the burden of responding to the needs of market-driven structural change on the shoulders of the regulators and the courts in a constant search for loopholes in the law. The purpose of this book is to evaluate the case for and against eliminating the barriers that have so long existed between banking and other types of financial services in the United States. Universal Banking in the United States studies the consequences of bank regulation in the U.S. as it relates to competition in international financial markets. Anthony Saunders and Ingo Walter examine universal banking systems in other countries, especially Germany, Switzerland, and the U.K., and how they work. They then apply the lessons to U.S. banking, paying particular attention to the benchmarks of stability, equity, efficiency, and competitiveness against which the performance of national financial systems should be measured. In the end, the authors propose the outlines of a level playing field on which any number of forms of organization can grow in the financial services sector, in which universal banking is one of the permitted structures, and where regulation is linked to function.
This volume traces the political, financial and economic steps towards financial union in Europe, focusing on the political economy of the process - notably the dynamics of a Europe of sovereign states.
This is a revision of the business of global banking. With the increased globalization of the world economy few sectors are the equal of banking and financial services in dynamism or structural change. Roy C. Smith and Ingo Walter assess this transformation-its causes, its course and its consequences. They begon by examining international commercial banking, including the issue of cross-border risk evaluation and exposure management, and the creation of a viable regulatory framework in a global competitive context. hey then undertake a parallel assessment of international investment banking, linking the two by means of a bridge chapter. Finally, they focus on the factors that determine winners and losers in these markets and explore the problems of strategic position and execution.
Examines corporate and individual ethics in the securities industry and makes recommendations for establishing and upholding responsible and realistic standards
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