Events, Centre for Analytical Finance(CAF)- Indian School of Business (ISB)

Talk by James R Barth- Events, Centre for Analytical Finance(CAF)- Indian School of Business (ISB)

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:58:16 GMT

CAF had organised a talk by James R Barth on the topic: The “piece-meal fixes” of the Federal Reserve, US Congress and White House, and government regulatory agencies to the growing and evolving crisis.

James Barth is the Lowder Eminent Scholar in Finance at Auburn University and a Senior Fellow at the Milken Institute. He has held other important academic positions, including Professor of Economics at George Washington University and Associate Director of the economics programme at the National Science Foundation. He has also held important non-academic positions, including chief economist of the Office of Thrift Supervision and chief economist of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board in the USA.

Barth’s research focusses on financial institutions and capital markets, both domestic and global. His special expertise is regulatory issues. He has authored more than 200 articles in professional journals, and written and edited several books. Because of his expertise in the thrift and banking industries and in financial institution and deposit insurance issues, he has been invited to testify before the US House Banking Committee and US Senate Banking Committee on several occasions.

Distinguished Lecture Series: Talk by Professor Jonathan Morduch- Events, Centre for Analytical Finance(CAF)- Indian School of Business (ISB)

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 10:02:28 GMT

The Centre for Analytical Finance (CAF) at the ISB, recently invited Jonathan Morduch, Professor of Public Policy and Economics at New York University, to take part in the Distinguished Lecture Series. The theme of Professor Morduch’s address was, ‘Microfinance - The Next Capitalist Revolution?’ Professor Morduch is a leading academic authority on microfinance, and directs the Financial Access Initiative, a research consortium based at NYU Wagner. He is currently an advisor to the board of Pro Mujer, and is a member of the United Nations Advisors Group on Inclusive Financial Sectors.

Twenty years ago, Professor Morduch visited the city of Hyderabad for his dissertation, which, he mentioned, set the path for this visit. He had then studied how farmers across South India addressed risks in the face of droughts, which occurred once or twice every year. “Their basic survival strategy helped me see the credit markets as not only a key way to finance one’s business , but also a key way to manage risks, and do so much more in life,” he recalled. Those lessons from India were the start of a journey towards microfinance, towards seeing the credit market in a much broader dimension.

Professor Morduch shared with his audience a brief history of microfinance. What started as a small initiative in the early nineties, today has more than 130 billion borrowers globally, and the numbers are largely driven by South Asia, he explained. “We have a compelling narrative around microfinance that has propelled these statistics. The first part focuses on small businesses, and the second part focuses on the lack of collateral as the source of constraint that poor households have in accessing the financial markets.

The genius of microfinance was to find the contracts and protocols that would allow banks to reliably lend to poor households who lack assets that traditional bankers would seek,” he said. According to Professor Morduch, microfinance today is a well understood phenomenon, “an idea that is elegant in its simplicity”. The very core of the idea is that the poor households are bankable, the focus originally being on small microsize loans for microsize business. These loans promised to transform poor households by giving access to capital. The concept was embraced by donors and the government, who were looking at new ways to provide social welfare, but more importantly it was also being embraced as a new way of thinking about banking. “The combination of both these two angles, the commercial and the social, imparts microfinance its great power,” he noted.

Microfinance thereafter has rapidly become a global phenomenon, a powerful, continuous narrative – true in many ways, but according to Professor Morduch, it is also important to reassess and reimagine some of the core elements of microfinance. Giving the example of Comaprtomas, a top microfinance bank in Mexico which made huge profits and attracted private capital by charging high interest from its poor customers, Morduch wondered whether the bank was any better than a moneylender, or was it the future of microfinance. “For people like Mohammed Younus, microfinance is about creating social business with a strong underscore on social, where social ambassadors are willing to trade-off financial returns with social returns. On the other hand the other vision of microfinance is to be able to tap private commercial markets. The tension between the two visions, commercial and social, that raises the big question. With markets being messy, is it time for microfinance to grow up and embrace the commercial?,” he debated on.

The Professor shared that the ground reality is that 40-60 percent of the adult global population is unbankable. To reach this untapped market (about a billion customers) building on social investment alone would not mobilize the capital necessary. What then are the future possibilities of microfinance? It is ultimately about trade-offs? “For researchers like us, this choice between the social and the commercial is a false choice. We don’t need to choose one path or the other. At times a purely commercial approach is critical to reach a scale of population, and there will be times when social businesses are critical to achieve the ultimate promise of microfinance,” he said.

He re-examined four core areas of microfinance – interest rates, loan uses, livelihoods and finally subsidy commercialisation and profitability. Some conclusions drawn were - Higher interest rates maybe in the end be welfare-enhancing, but we have to recognize of course that there are going to be important trade-offs in doing so. Very little data is available to show what happens when interest rates rises. The idea of expanding financial access through microfinance, which is focussed only on micro enterprises, is a very narrow approach. We need to capture broader elements of possibilities, we need to get households to a different production function. Finally, mere profitability may not be enough. To attract private capital one needs to look good in terms of relative risks and returns.

In conclusion Professor Morduch explained that recognizing the limits to the win-win proposition is an important step toward reaching a more constructive dialogue between microfinance that advocates that privilege financial development, and those that privilege social impacts. “Achieving both profitability and strong social performance is the ultimate promise of microfinance. It is not impossible, but neither is it easy. We as academicians need to help clarify and frame the tradeoffs. Microfinance then has incredible possibilities,” he concluded.

Summer Research Conference in Finance- Events, Centre for Analytical Finance(CAF)- Indian School of Business (ISB)

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:06:24 GMT

Third Annual CAF - FIC - SIFR Conference- Events, Centre for Analytical Finance(CAF)- Indian School of Business (ISB)

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:47:29 GMT

Workshop on Probability and Statistics- Events, Centre for Analytical Finance(CAF)- Indian School of Business (ISB)

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:06:28 GMT

CAF will be offering several courses/workshops to the resident faculty and staff members interested in a research career to help their professional development. The courses will complement each other and impart analytical skills that could be used for empirical research in many business disciplines. The workshop was free for the participants.

A course in Probability and Statistics was conducted in the PGP term 4. It was a six-week course of 12 lectures, with the first lecture on Monday, September 3, 2007 and the last lecture on Friday, October 12, 2007. Professor P Bhimasankaram, a highly accomplished statistician with extensive teaching and research records conducted the course.

This course was designed as a preparatory course for CAF’s final offerings this year: a sequence of two courses in Econometrics with a focus on research applications.

Workshop Information

Introductory Doctoral Course in Microeconomics offered by CAF- Events, Centre for Analytical Finance(CAF)- Indian School of Business (ISB)

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:11:22 GMT

From time to time CAF offers courses/ workshops for interested resident faculty and staff memebers.The programmes are aimed at research skill - buliding of the participants, and focus on subjects that are important across business disciplines The Introductory doctotral course in Microeconomics commenced on Monday, June 22, 2009, and was taught by Professor Parikshit Ghosh of Delhi School of Economics. This course was designed to help in the professional development of the ISB community.

Workshop Information

Speech by Professor T N Srinivasan- Events, Centre for Analytical Finance(CAF)- Indian School of Business (ISB)

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:37:25 GMT

T N Srinivasan (born 1933) is the Samuel C Park, Jr Professor of Economics at Yale University. He was formerly chairman of the department of economics at Yale University. He was a special adviser to the Development Research Centre at the World Bank from 1977 to 1980, and has taught at numerous academic institutions over the past four decades, including MIT, Stanford University, and the Indian Statistical Institute. In 2007, he received a Padma Bhushan decoration from the President of India for his contributions to Literature and Education.

He is visiting fellow at the Centre for Research on Economic Development and Policy Reform, Stanford University; fellow at the Econometric Society, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and American Philosophical Society; and a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA. He has authored a prolific collection of books and articles on econometrics, world trade, and developing country economics.

The topic of his address was “Changing Interface between Financial and Real Sectors: Lessons form China and India”. In the current global economic scenario where a financial crisis has severely impacted GDP growth rate in practically every country in the world, the importance and topicality of the subject can be hardly over-emphasised.

Full Text of Speech

Workshop on Timeseries Econometrics by Professor Raja Velu- Events, Centre for Analytical Finance(CAF)- Indian School of Business (ISB)

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:28:33 GMT

Professor Raja Velu conducted three lectures of two hours each duration on Time Series Methods and some applications in Finance. Though generally the use of financial econometrics is made in CAF’s applied research work, this helped some researchers at the (CAF) who expressed an interest in lectures on time series econometrics with applications to finance.

Workshop Information

Workshop on Econometrics- Events, Centre for Analytical Finance(CAF)- Indian School of Business (ISB)

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:29:15 GMT

CAF offered a course in Econometrics. It was a six-week course consisting of 12 lectures. The instructor was Professor P Bhimasankaram, who is an accomplished statistician with extensive teaching and research records. The course focussed on cross – sectional econometrics.This course was the fourth in the series of courses/ workshops that CAF offered in the current academic year to the resident faculty and staff members interested in a research career, and followed the three CAF courses in SAS , Probability and Statistics and Econometrics. These courses are intended to complement each other and impart analytical skills that could be used for empirical research across business disciplines.This workshop was open for all.

Workshop Information

Address by Ravi Jagannathan- Events, Centre for Analytical Finance(CAF)- Indian School of Business (ISB)

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:31:44 GMT

Ravi Jagannathan is the Chicago Mercantile Exchange/John F. Sandner Professor of Finance and a Co-Director of the Financial Institutions and Markets Research Centre. Before joining the Kellogg faculty, Professor Jagannathan was the Piper Jaffray Professor of Finance at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. Concurrent with his position at the University of Minnesota he served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Professor Jagannathan's research interests are in the areas of asset pricing, capital markets, financial institutions, and portfolio performance evaluation. His articles have appeared in leading academic journals, including the Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Finance, and Review of Financial Studies. His research has received extensive coverage in advanced textbooks on finance and economics. He has participated as an invited faculty member at Financial Management Association doctoral consortiums.

He has served on the editorial boards of leading academic journals. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Finance Association, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research, and President of the Society of Financial Studies. He has served on the advisory group on Share Based Compensation at the International Accounting Standards Board. Professor Jagannathan is a member of the American Finance Association, the Western Finance Association, and the Econometrics Society. He has served as a consultant to several companies in the financial services sector.

Professor Jagannathan received his PhD and MS at Carnegie-Mellon University, his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, and his BE from the University of Madras, India.

Why are we in a Recession-The Financial Crisis is the Symptom, not the Disease!

T N Srinivasan's talk on Indian Economic Development Strategy- Events, Centre for Analytical Finance(CAF)- Indian School of Business (ISB)

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:08:03 GMT

The evolution of the policy formulation and implementation since our country got its constitution has often been described as “gradual” or denigrated as “stuck” in terms of pace and “broken” or “ineffective” in terms of achieving the outcomes that policymakers ostensibly intended. On average, these may be reasonable characterisations. India’s efforts to direct development through an extensive and elaborate set of controls and fiscal incentives did last years longer than many of its counterparts’ similar experiments. The country’s basic development strategy remained essentially unchanged until the mid-1980s although the relative emphasis on different sectors of the economy such as agriculture, industry, foreign trade and finance was modified periodically in response to various economic and political shocks.

India’s Economic Development Strategy and Economic Reforms: A Political Economy Perspective

Winter Research Conference 2006- Events, Centre for Analytical Finance(CAF)- Indian School of Business (ISB)

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 10:24:24 GMT

Theme: “Microstructure of International Financial Markets”

The conference began with a reception on Sunday December 17, with the sessions held on December 18 and 19, 2006.

The conference was sponsored by the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange Limited (NCDEX) and National Stock Exchange of India (NSE). The $ 5,000 Best Paper award instituted by New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was shared between Tarun Chordia (Emory University), Richard Roll and Avanidhar Subrahmanyam (UCLA) for the paper "Liquidity and Market Efficiency" and Karl B. Diether, Kuan-Hui Lee and Ingrid M. Werner (Ohio State University) for the paper "Can Short-sellers Predict Returns? Daily Evidence".

This year we received a total of 45 submissions for 10 spots on the programme. The number as well as the high quality of many submissions resulted in keen competition for selection. All accepted papers went through two rounds of reviewing: an initial round for appropriateness and quality and a final round when they were ranked against each other. All papers in the final round were reviewed by two members of the program committee. The committee included Hank Bessembinder (Utah), Sankar De (ISB), Terry Hendershott (Berkeley), Narayan Naik (London Business School), Avanidhar Subrahmanyam (UCLA), S Viswanathan (Duke), and Pradeep Yadav (Oklahoma).

Agenda

To download papers selected for the conference, click on the following links:

Alessandro Beber (University of Lausanne), Michael Brandt (Duke University) and Kenneth A. Kavajecz (University of Wisconsin)
Flight to Quality or Flight to Liquidity? Evidence from the Euro-Area Bond Market

Sreedhar T. Bharath , Paolo Pasquariello (University of Michigan) and Guojun Wu (University of Houston) Does Asymmetric Information Drive Capital Structure Decisions?

Sugato Bhattacharyya (University of Michigan), Vikram Nanda (Arizona State University)
Portfolio Pumping, Trading Activity and Fund Performance

Jiwei Dong (Lancaster University), Alexander Kempf (Universitat Zu Koln) and Pradeep K. Yadav (Oklahoma University)
Resiliency, the Neglected Dimension of Market Liquidity: Empirical Evidence from the New York Stock Exchange

David Easley (Cornell University), Terrence Hendershott (UC Berkeley) and Tarun Ramadorai (University of Oxford and CEPR)
The Impact of Trading Technology: Evidence from the 1980 NYSE Post Upgrades

Albert J. Menkveld (Vrije Universiteit)
Designated Market Markers for Small Cap- Stocks: Is One Enough?

Santosh Kumar (Morgan Stanley) and Ajay Shah (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research)
Commonality in Liquidity of an Open Electronic Limit Order Book Market

Tarun Chordia (Emory University), Richard Roll and Avanidhar Subrahmanyam (UCLA)
Liquidity and Market Efficiency

Karl B. Diether, Kuan-Hui Lee and Ingrid M. Werner (Ohio State University)
Can Short-sellers Predict Returns? Daily Evidence

Tarun Chordia, Amit Goyal (Emory University), Gil Sadka (Columbia University), Ronnie Sadka (University of Washington) and Lakshmanan Shivakumar ( London Business School)
Liquidity and the Post-Earnings-Announcement-Drift

The CAF organises two research conferences each year: one in the summer (mid-August) and the other in the winter (late December). Programme schedules and papers presented at earlier conferences can be found on the CAF website. The format of earlier conferences has typically been to discuss three research papers in the morning and another two in late afternoon/evening on each day of the conference, with early afternoon hours left for the participants to form their own informal groups and work together.

Please contact Reena Gandhi by Email at: mailto:winter_conference2006@isb.eduor by phone at
91-40-2318-7804 if you need more information.