With the increased volume of cross border claims and internationally growing banking networks over the last decades and the increased perception of this development as a potential source of systemic risk and contagion effects, research itiantives formed aiming at providing insights on this matter and connecting researchers interested in this field. In order to keep track of the latest developments concerning the research on global banking, including articles, posts and conferences, it might be helpful to subscribe to the InterConnectedness Newsletter and to the IBL Newsletter.
The Imperial College Business School (London) launched a Centre “aiming to develop a greater understanding and more efficient management of risk” led by Franklin Allen and Douglas Gale. “The main aim of the Brevan Howard Centre’s research agenda will be to analyse the market and other failures that appear to be so prevalent in the financial system and make suggestions for improvements. In order to achieve these aims, the centre hosts conferences on the subject.
The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance is an international interdisciplinary academic research institute dedicated to the study of alternative finance, which includes financial channels and instruments that emerge outside of the traditional financial system (i.e. regulated banks and capital markets). Examples of alternative channels are online ‘marketplaces’ such as equity- and reward-based crowdfunding, peer-to-peer consumer/business lending, and third-party payment platforms. Alternative instruments include SME mini-bonds, private placements and other ‘shadow banking’ mechanisms, social impact bonds and community shares used by non-profit enterprises, and alternative currencies such as Bitcoin. Moreover the center develops and hosts the Global Alternative Finance Data Depository, which already comprises more than one million granular-level alternative finance transactional data totalling £1bn; qualitative survey data; national consumer and SME alternative finance awareness and perception polls and hundreds of in-depth qualitative interviews.
The mission of CEBRA is to encourage applied and theoretical research on topics relevant to central banks, financial regulators, international financial institutions, and fiscal authorities, as well as to connect the research staff of these institutions with academia. CEBRA is open to all researchers who share an interest in relevant research fields that include but are not limited to macroeconomics, financial economics, banking and financial stability, international economics, and microeconomics.
The Center for Analytical Finance (CAFIN) is a group of researchers dedicated to analyse and resolve the practical challenges of finance in a globalized financial system with the focus on system risk, market design and financial access. In collaboration with the Department of Economics of the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) the research group compiles lectures and research with practical applications in the area of finance and financial markets and aims at bringing researchers into collaborative contact with practitioners and policymakers to give solutions concerning risk management and offer robust tools for financial decision-making and policymaking.
The CFS is a non-profit research center that conducts independent research in five different areas. Those areas are household finance, financial stability and banking regulation, trading and pricing in financial markets, law and economics of financial organizations, and monetary policy and financial markets. Moreover, the findings of the CFS contribute to policy analyses as well as to policy debates. The CFS also provides the CFS Index that provides data for the German financial sector. Further information on this index is provided in the data section and in the Excel file.
The EBRD publishes different surveys as well as data series for macro economic and structural indicators. One example is its “Banking Environment and Performance Survey”, which includes 611 banks in 32 countries. The results accentuate the strengths and weaknesses of the banking system in each of those 32 participating countries. The EBRD also provides data forecasts for the pertaining countries as well as indicators on structural change, transition and transition development.
European Central Banking Network: A new CEPR Network – The Bank of Slovenia in cooperation with CEPR is launching this new initiative whose mission is to permit cooperation among research departments of participating central banks on selected key topics, with a focus on Emerging Europe.
The Global Capital Allocation Project provides a number of tools, datasets, and other utilities that are available to other researchers. These allow to analyze global capital allocations by country, currency, and asset class. The project also provides data that associates the universe of traded equity and debt securities with their issuer’s ultimate parent, including those issued in tax havens.
The International Banking Research Network is a research network of central banks worldwide. Researchers in the network are investigating the contribution of internationally active banks to the transmission of financial shocks. For this reason, they are analyzing the causes, the channels and the consequences of cross-border banking. They are using bank-level data in order to analyze different banking systems. Access to bank-level data is provided by the Central Banks in the network.
MaRs, an internal network for macro-prudential research, was launched in Spring 2010 by the European System of Central Banks, which consists of the 27 European Union (EU) national central banks and the ECB. MaRs aims to develop core conceptual frameworks, models and/or tools that provide research support in order to improve macro-prudential supervision in the EU.
The MoFiR group was established in 2007. The aim of the MoFiR group is to analyze the development of the financial system in order to understand the real consequences of this development for the evolution of the economic system. As banks play an important role in the financial system, they also have a central role in the research of the MoFiR group. However, the MoFiR group not only analyzes banks, but also other forms of financial intermediation.
PolEconFin provides a platform to connect researchers active in the political economy of finance. The initiative invites both theorists and empiricists in the field to contribute and discuss recent research, with a focus on public policy. It is a joint initiative of the University of Amsterdam, Tilburg University, and the Erasmus University Rotterdam, and comprises of two related projects: the online platform dedicated to promote research in the field, for example by featuring articles and opinions, and its CEPR conference series.
SAFE is a cooperation of the CFS and the Goethe-University Frankfurt. It focuses on research on Europe and is creating new datasets for Germany and Europe in order to overcome the current lack of these data. SAFE focuses on research on all areas that are relevant for the development of a sustainable architecture for finance. The research includes financial institutions, corporate governance, household finance, financial markets and macro finance. The aim is to contribute to an interaction with the society and policy makers and thus to contribute to prudent policy design.
The SRC focuses on systemic risk, and analyzes risks arising through interlinkages in the financial system, that may cause the next financial crisis. The aim is to develop tools in order to help financial institutions and policymakers better understand the risks they are facing and become better prepared. The SRC started its work in 2013 and brings together experts from different fields (like computer science, political science as well as finance and economics).
The Systemic Risk Tomography (SYRTO) Project is a project funded by the European Union as an early warning system to identify potential threats to financial stability. It focuses on signals, measurements, transmission channels of systemic risk and tries to realize an ensemble of suggestions and prescriptions on the appropriate policy measures, governance structure and macro-prudential supervision to prevent, manage and resolve systemic crises in the Eurozone. The project also aims at sharing ideas and results on research activity with academics and institutions involved in the topic of systemic risk.