CALL FOR PAPERS

　10TH ANNUAL BANK RESEARCH CONFERENCE

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　   Finance and Sustainable Growth

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　  October 28-29, 2010
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Arlington, Virginia

Jointly organized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's Center for Financial Research and the Journal of Financial Services Research (JFSR)

The FDIC's Center for Financial Research and the JFSR invite submissions for the 10th Annual Fall Research Conference to be held in Arlington, Virginia on October 28-29, 2010.

OVERVIEW:

Financial services are intermediate inputs that provide benefits to society when they contribute to economic growth and raise standards of living. As a share of GDP, financial services have grown from 2.5 percent in the 1940s to almost 8 percent today. During this period of growth, few questioned whether the finance sector created social benefits commensurate with its share of GDP. Following the crisis, many are re-examining the linkages between the financial sector and sustainable growth. Government policies, moreover, are likely to alter the existing balance between finance and the real sector. Many market failures have been identified as a source of skewed incentives that inflated a credit bubble. Policy solutions for some issues have yet to materialize, but governments have mandated stricter prudential standards for executive compensation, bank capital, leverage, and liquidity in addition to proposed regulations and legislation to enhance financial product consumer protections and to limit the activities of financial institutions that benefit from safety net subsidies. These policies promise to increase financial sector stability but their overall impact oneconomic growth and consumer welfare is mostly unknown.

TOPICS:

The 10th Annual Fall Bank research Conference will focus on the relationship between the provision of financial services, economic growth and public policy. Topics to be considered (but not limited to) are:

- Will efforts to increase financial stability lower (raise?) economic growth?
- Will regulatory reform proposals limit the availability or raise the cost of investment capital?
- Will tighter prudential standards and stricter consumer protections limit credit availability and raise the cost of consumer borrowing? Are the benefits to consumers worth the additional costs?
- Is there an optimal size for the financial sector relative to the "real" economy? Do government safety nets encourage too many resources to be allocated to financial services?
- What evidence exists regarding the welfare tradeoffs associated with new and stricter financial regulations?
- Do rating agencies, securitization and credit derivatives create economic value? What additional regulations may be needed to increase the economic benefits associated with these activities?

The 10th Annual FDIC-JFSR conference will provide a forum to discuss these issues.

The organizers also seek high-quality papers related to any of the CFR's research programs:

- Deposit Insurance
- Consumer Finance and Credit Issues
- Risk Measurement
- Financial Sector Policy and Regulation
- Corporate Finance
- Banking Performance and the Economy

PAPER SUBMISSION PROCEDURE:

Papers will be selected for presentation based on reviews by associate editors of the JFSR and the organizing committee (Paul Kupiec and Haluk Unal).

Expenses for travel, food, and lodging will be reimbursed for paper presenters. Papers must be received by August 1, 2010. Authors will be notified about the status of their papers by September 15, 2010.

Please submit papers as "PDF" attachments to an email sent to:

Email: CFR@fdic.gov

Please name the file: "YourLastName.pdf."

FURTHER INFORMATION:

For additional information, contact:

CONTACT: Paul Kupiec
el: (202) 898-6768
Email: pkupiec@fdic.gov
or
CONTACT: Haluk Unal
Tel: (301) 405-2256
Email: hunal@rhsmith.umd.edu