Call For Papers
Conference on Data Standards, Information, and Financial Stability

April 11th ­ 12th, 2014, Loughborough University, East Midlands, UK

Submission deadline: Dec 16th, 2013

Organized by Loughborough University, with support from the Journal of Financial Stability and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

OVERVIEW: The global financial crisis revealed serious gaps in the information available to regulators for monitoring and mitigation of systemic financial risk. Assessing the solvency of financial firms and where necessary resolving them in an orderly fashion similarly requires comprehensive and granular exposure data. But how can data from multiple sources and in multiple formats provide a cross-company, cross-market, and cross-border view of the exposures of major financial institutions and their contribution to systemic risk?

This issue is now moving to the top of the regulatory agenda. The Dodd-Frank Act in the US established the Office of Financial Research (OFR) with the remit of improving the quality of data available to supervisors for assessing risks to the financial system. This objective has also been endorsed internationally by the G20’s Financial Stability Board, beginning with the creation of the ‘global legal entity identifier system’ (GLEIS) and its application in OTC markets. But many questions remain about the costs and benefits of introducing these new data standards, and the practical steps that will be needed to make them work.

TOPICS: The organisers invite theoretical, empirical, and practically orientated research papers relevant to these key policy issues. Papers from the conference will be eligible for submission to a special issue of the Journal of Financial Stability.

The organisers will consider both completed papers and also extended drafts. Submissions are encouraged on, but not restricted to, the following questions:
- The economics of standard setting in financial services. The bar-code dramatically improved retail and supply chain efficiency. Are there equivalent benefits from data standardisation in financial services? What are the barriers to their realisation?
- The economics of financial information. What are the current business models that support collection and dissemination of pricing and position information? Why has standardisation not already emerged to lower the costs of production?
- The relationships between data and messaging standards and market structure and competition, for example in the market microstructure of high frequency trading
- Market data and accounting standards. Is mark-to-market always appropriate?
- The role of information disclosure in episodes of financial instability. Does greater disclosure always promote stability or can it create destabilising feedbacks?
- Typology and classification. Is there a clean conceptual framework that can allow standardised recording and aggregation of financial positions?
- What is the appropriate legal framework to govern the ownership and transmission of standardised financial data? Is an extension of the 15 minute rule applicable to exchange traded pricing appropriate to all financial transactions?
- The conceptual framework of national accounting became the global standard for reporting national economic statistics following the economic upheaval of the 1930s. Are there parallels with today and lessons for financial regulation?
- What new approaches to financial stability modelling or prudential supervision are possible with information technology based data reporting?
- The role of data standards in resolution of financial firms, including case studies and analysis of previous resolutions. How these could be facilitated by better data standards and what would these data standards need to contain?

PAPER SUBMISSION PROCEDURE: Those interested in participating are invited to submit a full paper in pdf or word format to Prof. Alistair Milne (email: a.k.l.milne@lboro.ac.uk), by Monday, 16th December, 2013, at 12:00pm (PST). Acceptance decisions will be made by 31st January, 2014.

Travel and accommodation expenses will be covered at economy class rates for conference participants presenting papers.

The post-conference deadline for submission to the Journal of Financial Stability will be 30 June, 2014. The details of the submission process will be announced at the time of the conference.

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE:
Kern Alexander (University of Zurich)
David Bholat (Bank of England)
William A. Barnett (University of Kansas)
Rajesh Chakrabarti (Indian School of Business)
Horst Entorf (Goethe University)
Trevor Harris (Columbia Business School)
Richard Herring (University of Pennsylvania)
Sheri Markose (University of Essex)
David Mayes (University of Auckland)
Alistair Milne (Loughborough University)
Philip Molyneux (University of Bangor)
Maureen O'Hara (Cornell University)
Peter Ware (Swift Institute)

FURTHER INFORMATION: For any enquiry, please email Prof. Alistair Milne at: a.k.l.milne@lboro.ac.uk