Preliminary Call for Papers: The 2008 Unicredit Conference on Banking and Finance Beyond the Illusion of Risk Diffusion

                            CALL FOR PAPERS

          THE 2008 UNICREDIT CONFERENCE ON BANKING AND FINANCE

                 BEYOND THE ILLUSION OF RISK DIFFUSION

                           6-7 November 2008
                            Vienna, Austria


      The current turmoil in the credit and securities market has
      exposed the limitations of current risk-based measures of
      bank capital, the potential dangers from loan
      securitization and the difficulties of locating and
      evaluating risk in opaque markets. These events raise
      important issues for regulation: should bank capital ratios
      be based on marked-to-market measures of bank assets? What
      are appropriate accounting rules for SIVs/Conduits, and
      should prudential rules restrict the maturity mismatches
      that SIVs/Conduits can generate? Is regulation needed to
      raise the level of transparency in securitization and/or
      set standards for credit rating agencies? Are there risks
      of an excessive regulatory response to the crisis? The
      crisis also raises thorny questions regarding the future
      viability of the banking business model known as
      "originate-to-distribute": is this system truly capable of
      distributing credit risks beyond the boundaries of the
      banking system? Can it be made to work in a situation of
      low market liquidity when marking to market is required?
      Can the model be modified so as not to lead to mispricing
      of risk? If, instead, this banking business model cannot be
      saved, should we expect a permanently lower supply of
      credit, or anyway a structural change in bank-firms
      interactions? And how will this change the impact of
      monetary policy on bank behavior?

      To address these issues, a conference titled "Beyond the
      Illusion of Risk Diffusion" will be held in Vienna,
      Austria, on 6-7 November 2008, in collaboration with the
      Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration,
      the Wharton Financial Institutions Center and the Review of
      Finance. The program committee is formed by Viral Acharya,
      Franklin Allen, Elena Carletti, Giovanni Dell'Ariccia, Itay
      Goldstein, Robert Marquez, Alan Morrison, Steven Ongena,
      Marco Pagano, Lucy White and Josef Zechner. The conference
      is sponsored by the Unicredit Group and organized jointly
      with Elena Belli, Stefano Chiarlone and Marianne Kager of
      its Research and Strategy Unit.

      The program committee invites the submission of high-
      quality research papers on issues relevant to the
      conference's topic. The topics listed below are of
      particular interest.


      TOPICS:

      - Valuation uncertainty, transparency and accounting rules
      - Liquidity risk and market risk
      - Marking-to-market of bank assets in prudential regulation
      - Securitization of bank loans and instrument design
      - SIV and conduits
      - Credit derivative markets and risk management
      - Role of credit rating agencies
      - Role of mortgage brokers and lenders
      - Interbank markets
      - Regulation of financial institutions
      - Crisis management and role of central banks as liquidity
        providers
      - Bank-firms relationships


      KEYNOTE SPEAKERS (to be finally confirmed):

      - Douglas W. Diamond
      - Randall S. Kroszner


      PAPER SUBMISSION PROCEDURE:

      Papers or extended abstracts should be submitted
      electronically in Acrobat format to:

      CONTACT:       Tina Horowitz
      Email:         MAILTO:horowitt@wharton.upenn.edu

      by June 16, 2008. Authors will be notified about the
      acceptance of papers and the conference program by the end
      of July. The UniCredit Group will cover travel and
      accommodation costs of presenters and discussants. Authors
      will retain copyrights of papers presented at the
      conference, and submission to the conference does not imply
      submission to the Review of Finance. However, if submitted
      to the Review of Finance, papers presented at the
      conference are eligible for free "fast track" reviewing -
      that is, are guaranteed an editorial decision in 2 weeks
      without any submission fee.
Posted 5/2/08