International drivers of Brazilian agricultural cooperation in Africa in the post-2008 economic crisis

This text focuses on the major drivers of Brazilian agricultural cooperation in Africa as conceived and pursued from 2004 to 2014, with emphasis on the impacts of political and economic international changes that took place in that period, and particularly the impacts of the 2008 economic crisis, in framing Brazil's foreign policy and development assistance initiatives. It addresses current international forces and developments at the systemic level, but also analyses recent economic domestic developments, in particular those directly related to Brazilian agriculture and those related to the policy framework of its evolving internationalization. Special attention is paid to the dual dimensions of Brazilian agricultural policy and to its projection in agricultural cooperation as pursed in Africa.

The role of deposit insurance and bank’s asset size in the 2008 financial crisis

In this paper we analyze the role of deposit insurance in providing the market with liquidity in times of financial turmoil. To do so, we look at the variation in insured and uninsured deposits between 2005Q3 and 2011Q3, controlling for liquidity, solvency and capital adequacy indicators, and find evidence that deposit insurance does provide some confidence in keeping funds in banks in times of turmoil. Additionally we follow an event study methodology to assess the impact of deposit insurance oriented policies on bank holding companies stock market returns, and find a TBTF effect.

The 2008 financial crisis and neoclassical economics

The 2008 global financial crisis was the consequence of the process of financialization, or the creation of massive fictitious financial wealth, that began in the 1980s, and of the hegemony of a reactionary ideology, namely, neoliberalism, based on self-regulated and efficient markets. Although capitalism is intrinsically unstable, the lessons from the stock-market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression of the 1930s were transformed into theories and institutions or regulations that led to the "30 glorious years of capitalism" (1948-1977) and that could have avoided a financial crisis as profound as the present one. It did not because a coalition of rentiers and "financists" achieved hegemony and, while deregulating the existing financial operations, refused to regulate the financial innovations that made these markets even more risky. Neoclassical economics played the role of a meta-ideology as it legitimized, mathematically and "scientifically", neoliberal ideology and deregulation. From this crisis a new capitalism will emerge, though its character is difficult to predict. It will not be financialized but the tendencies present in the 30 glorious years toward global and knowledge-based capitalism, where professionals will have more say than rentier capitalists, as well as the tendency to improve democracy by making it more social and participative, will b e resumed.

Does Regulation matter? Institutional dimension of the 2008 financial crisis

Why did house prices fall in 2007‐2009? This is the fundamental question to most Americans, and to those who lent them money. Most homeowners did not care why residential real estate prices rose. They assumed prices always rose, and they should simply enjoy their good fortune. It was not until prices began to fall that people were left searching for answers. How much did regulation or lack thereof play in the role of the devastation? To what degree did greed and unrealistic consumer expectation have on the real estate bubble? Using existing literature as well as face to face interviews of experienced leaders within the real estate industry in California who experienced both the up and down of the real estate cycle, the overarching purpose of this study is to investigate the opinions and beliefs of the leaders and drivers within the real estate industry about the cause of the real estate bubble that occurred sharply in 2008 . Specifically, this project will focus on the opinions of real estate industry leaders who worked in the center of the subprime universe located in Irvine, California, during 2004‐2008. Comparing the mainstream beliefs with the interviewees it is fair to say that the main finding in the mainstream beliefs are reflected very well with the finding of the subject’s opinion. The thesis is divided into 6 chapters starting with “introduction”, followed by chapter 2 “Literature Review”. Chapter 3 is “Research Methodology” followed by chapter 4 “Data Presentation”. Finally, the results are discussed in chapter 5 “Analysis and Discussion” and conclusions in Chapter 6.

Value and momentum strategies in the Brazilian stock market: the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath

Esta dissertação analisa o desempenho de três estratégias de investimento em carteiras de custo zero (“value”, “momentum” e uma combinação 50/50 delas, que é chamada de “combo”) no mercado de ações brasileiro durante a última década. Os resultados são comparados aos encontrados por Asness, Moskowitz e Pedersen (2009) para quatro mercados: EUA, Reino Unido, Europa Continental, e Japão. Uma análise específica é feita em torno da crise financeira de 2008, comparando os resultados pré- e pós-crise. O índice de Sharpe é usado para ajustar os desempenhos por seus riscos, e para classificar as estratégias para diferentes horizontes de investimento. Os resultados mostram um ótimo desempenho da estratégia “combo” nos últimos três anos, período que inclui a crise de 2008, mas considerando todo o período analisado a estratégia “value” obteve o melhor desempenho. Esse resultado difere dos resultados encontrados para os quatro mercados de referência, onde a estratégia combo tem o melhor desempenho. A análise do horizonte de investimento mostra que a escolha do investidor pode mudar com diferentes horizontes.

The development of the private equity industry since the 2008 financial crisis

The private equity industry was experiencing a phenomenal boom at the turn of the century but collapsed abruptly in 2008 with the onset of the financial crisis. Considered one of the worst crises since the Great Depression of the 1930s, it had sent ripples around the world threatening the collapse of financial institutions and provoking a liquidity crunch followed by a huge downturn in economic activity and recession. Furthermore, the physiognomy of the financial landscape had considerably altered with banks retracting from the lending space, accompanied by a hardening of financial regulation that sought to better contain systemic risk. Given the new set of changes and challenges that had arisen from this period of financial turmoil, private equity found itself having to question current practices and methods of operation in order to adjust to the harsh realities of a new post-apocalyptic world. Consequently, this paper goes on to explore how the private equity business, management and operation model has evolved since the credit crunch with a specific focus on mature markets such as the United States and Europe. More specifically, this paper will aim to gather insights on the development of the industry since the crisis in Western Europe through a case study approach using as a base interviews with professionals working in the industry and those external to the sector but who have/have had considerable interaction with PE players from 2007 to the present.

Financial governance: the Brazilian experience on prudential regulation and its impacts on the effects of the 2008 financial crisis

The Brazilian economy was severely hit by the 2008 crisis. In the beginning of the crisis, the vast majorities of the economic agents and authorities thought that Brazil could face some sort of decoupling since some macroeconomic fundamentals were very good. What we saw, however, was that the Brazilian economy was not decoupled, and expectations faced a huge deterioration soon after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 15th. Two aspects regarding the impact of crisis in Brazil, however, deserve a great deal of attention: (a) although deep, the impact did not last for a long time. Actually, the GDP growth experienced a good recovery in the second quarter of 2009, showing that the health of the Brazilian economy was good; (b) the Brazilian banking system performed very well during the crisis, although we cannot say the system was not in danger in the worst time of the crisis. In spite of the confidence crisis faced by the banking system 1, it showed a great deal of resilience. In this aspect, we argue that the restructure faced by the banking system in the aftermath of the Real Plan, as well as the development of a solid supervision regulation helped a lot the system to avoid the systemic crisis that was an open possibility to the Brazilian banking system in the end of 2008. These notes, thus, discusse why the Brazilian banking system performed pretty well in the 2008 financial crisis and how the Brazilian banking (and prudential) regulation can be taken as responsible for this good performance. More specifically, the paper back to the middle of the 1990s, when the Real Plan was implemented, in order to understand the role played by the restructuring of the Brazilian financial system in helping to pave the way to the great resilience experienced by the Brazilian banking system during the 2008 crisis. More specifically, the prudential regulation that was implemented in Brazil in the aftermath of the Real Plan seems to play a decisive role in the resilience of the system nowadays.

Panorama de la Inserción Internacional de América Latina y el Caribe 2008-2009: crisis y espacios de cooperación regional

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Latin America and the Caribbean in the World Economy 2008-2009: Crisis and opportunities for regional cooperation

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Credit-Default-Swaps and the 2008 Financial Crisis: An Inquiry into the Underlying Legal Origins and the European Union’s Regulatory Reforms

After the 2008 financial crisis, the financial innovation product Credit-Default-Swap (CDS) was widely blamed as the main cause of this crisis. CDS is one type of over-the-counter (OTC) traded derivatives. Before the crisis, the trading of CDS was very popular among the financial institutions. But meanwhile, excessive speculative CDSs transactions in a legal environment of scant regulation accumulated huge risks in the financial system. This dissertation is divided into three parts. In Part I, we discussed the primers of the CDSs and its market development, then we analyzed in detail the roles CDSs had played in this crisis based on economic studies. It is advanced that CDSs not just promoted the eruption of the crisis in 2007 but also exacerbated it in 2008. In part II, we asked ourselves what are the legal origins of this crisis in relation with CDSs, as we believe that financial instruments could only function, positive or negative, under certain legal institutional environment. After an in-depth inquiry, we observed that at least three traditional legal doctrines were eroded or circumvented by OTC derivatives. It is argued that the malfunction of these doctrines, on the one hand, facilitated the proliferation of speculative CDSs transactions; on the other hand, eroded the original risk-control legal mechanism. Therefore, the 2008 crisis could escalate rapidly into a global financial tsunami, which was out of control of the regulators. In Part III, we focused on the European Union’s regulatory reform towards the OTC derivatives market. In specific, EU introduced mandatory central counterparty clearing obligation for qualified OTC derivatives, and requires that all OTC derivatives shall be reported to a trade repository. It is observable that EU’s approach in re-regulating the derivatives market is different with the traditional administrative regulation, but aiming at constructing a new market infrastructure for OTC derivatives.

Estimating the effect of the 2008 financial crisis on GNI in Greece and Iceland: A synthetic control approach

The purpose of this thesis is to conduct a comparative study in order to estimate the impact of the financial crisis to the GNI of Greece and Iceland. By applying synthetic control matching (a relatively new methodology) the study intends to compare the two countries, thus deducting conclusions about good or bad measures adopted. The results indicate that in both cases the adopted measures were not the optimal ones, since the synthetic counterfactual appear to perform better than the actual Greece and Iceland. Moreover, it is shown that Iceland reacted better to the shock it was exposed. However, different characteristics of the two countries impede the application of Icelandic actions in the Greek case.