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A Bright Future for the Hedge Fund Industry and its Impact on Policy Making

        

The Financial Times reports that hedge funds have transformed themselves and are increasingly influencing policy. My own work provides some empirical support for these observations. My study “Hedge Fund Manager Registration under the Dodd Frank Act” shows that hedge fund managers are only mildly affected by unprecedented registration and disclosure obligations under the Dodd-Frank Act and will be […]

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The Return of CDOs – Do We Need Dynamic Elements in Financial Regulation?

        

Despite the role of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) in the financial crisis of 2007-08, CDOs and other high risk investment products may soon be available again and are likely to proliferate.  The WSJ reports that  J.P. Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley bankers are assembling synthetic CDOs to satisfy demand for structured products by investors who seek high […]

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Dynamic Regulation of the Financial Services Industry

    

Governance adjustments via stable rules in reaction to financial crises are inevitably followed by relaxation, revision, and retraction. The economic conditions and the corresponding requirements for optimal and stable rules are constantly evolving, suggesting that a different set of rules could be optimal. Despite the risk of future crises, anticipation of future developments and preemption […]

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Evolution of Law: Dynamic Regulation in a New Institutional Economics Framework

  

The literature on New Institutional Economics (NIE) evaluates the relationship between public and private rulemaking in the evolution of law. This paper introduces the concept of dynamic regulation as an optimization process for the learning experience in the NIE framework. Dynamic regulation describes intra- and inter-jurisdictional feedback effects between different public rulemakers and between private […]

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Political opportunism in Germany deepens the gap in trust and political cultures between northern and southern Europe

  

Before the Euro crisis it was considered politically incorrect, even xenophobic, to suggest that standards of probity in public life vary widely across Europe. For an institution dedicated to an “ever closer union” this notion is a problem. The bailout deal for Cyprus (right after balancing the German budget -while its southern neighbors are struggling […]

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Improving Debt Bonus Programs for Executives

     

UBS is the latest bank to issue a debt bonus in the form of contingent capital notes (CoCos) to its top executives. The UBS issuance follows similar programs set up by Barclays and Credit Suisse. This emerging trend has many beneficial implications but debt bonus programs for executives can be further optimized. Banks’ debt based […]

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Improving UBS’s Executive CoCos

    

The FT reports (front page 2/5/2013) that UBS is issuing contingent capital notes (CoCos) to its top 6500 executives. The debt bonus in the form of CoCos will be written down to zero should the bank’s regulatory capital fall below 7 per cent or in the case of a “non-viability” loss. As I have demonstrated in several articles, hedge funds were […]

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Summary of Recent Study on Hedge Fund Manager Registration under Title IV of the Dodd-Frank Act

       

Read the article at Cayman Financial Review Read the full study This article summarises the results of a recent survey of private fund managers.* The study identifies the possible effects of hedge fund adviser registration under the Dodd-Frank Act and is intended to support policy makers in implementing new rules pertaining to the hedge fund […]

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January 6, 2013: Paper Presentation at Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools

  

Link to the paper: Forum Competition and Choice of Law Competition. Forum Competition and Choice of Law Competition in Securities Law after Morrison v. National Australia Bank Wulf A. Kaal University of St. Thomas, Minnesota – School of Law Richard W. Painter University of Minnesota Law School 2012 Minnesota Law Review, Vol. 97, 2012 U of St. Thomas Legal Studies Research Paper No. […]

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