Financial Institutions

Catalog description

This course explores the economic functions, institutional design, and regulation of financial institutions. Beginning with conventional deposit-taking banks, the course examines the risks embedded within the business of banking, along with how regulation seeks to manage these risks. It then expands this framework to examine several other forms of 'non-bank' financial intermediation including investment banks, insurance companies, wholesale funding markets, structured finance markets, money market and other investment funds, and financial market infrastructure. The course also examines some of the related consumer/investor protection problems and how financial regulation seeks to address them.