Finance Commons^™

The ‘Security Pacific Letter’: Estimating The Causal Effect Of Securitization On Banks’ Systemic Exposure, Paul-Angelo Dell'isola

Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Politics, Economics and World Affairs

This paper aims to test the hypothesis of the ‘Safe Asset narrative’

which states that banks became manufacturers of pseudo safe assets to meet

a global shortage of safe assets in the pre-crisis period. In this narrative,

securitization is the mechanism which enables banks to become underwriters

of safe assets. This paper takes this hypothesis to the data and attempts to

estimate the causal effect of securitization on banks’ systemic exposure. In

particular, this paper exploits a regulatory change that occurred in 1987 when

the OCC expanded the scope of assets US national banks could securitize. By

using state-chartered banks …

Modeling The Economic Machine Using Bayesian Inference And Statistical Networks, And Optimal Portfolio Construction Using Operations Research, Richard Yang

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

In this paper, we propose a network-based model to attempt to connect modern macroeconomic theory with real world economic observations and trends. We find that by extending macroeconomic theory with credit leveraging/deleveraging thresholds, we are able to explain economic cycles in addition to long-term growth. Furthermore, we specifically explore the growth-inflation view of the macro economy as a basis for optimal portfolio construction and efficient asset trading. Connecting our network-based macroeconomic model and our optimal portfolio construction algorithm, we create a novel macroeconomic asset-trading framework.