Conference Review
Modelling Risks in Financial Markets
15-16 October 2009
Summary Abstract
The first seminar in the Mellon-Sawyer series on risk, this event comprised a key note evening lecture by Prof Jose Scheinkman on 'Speculation and Bubbles', followed by a day-long seminar divided into three parts:
1. Macroeconomics: Prof David Miles on Issues in macro-prudential policy design and Dr Martin Weale on Should we be surprised by the depression?
2. Mathematical Modelling: Prof Philip Dybvig on International Origins of the Financial Crisis and Prof Alex Lipton on What mathematical modelling can and cannot do for you
3. Institutions: Mr Andrew Haldane on Banking on the State and Prof Donald MacKenzie on The Credit Crisis as a Problem in the Sociology of Knowledge
The event concluded with a round table discussion, chaired by Dr Bill Janeway.
1. Macroeconomics: Prof David Miles on Issues in macro-prudential policy design and Dr Martin Weale on Should we be surprised by the depression?
2. Mathematical Modelling: Prof Philip Dybvig on International Origins of the Financial Crisis and Prof Alex Lipton on What mathematical modelling can and cannot do for you
3. Institutions: Mr Andrew Haldane on Banking on the State and Prof Donald MacKenzie on The Credit Crisis as a Problem in the Sociology of Knowledge
The event concluded with a round table discussion, chaired by Dr Bill Janeway.
Conference Review
The conference was generally very well-attended.
Scheinkman’s lecture provided an innovative approach to understanding the dynamics of financial market Bubbles and Crashes and generated active audience questions and discussion.
All of the Panel discussions on the following day offered original content and contributed to understanding the problematic success of efforts to monitor and manage “risk” in an uncertain world. The presentations by Lipton, Haldane and MacKenzie were particularly striking in their (each very distinctive) methodology and content.
The conference succeeded in bringing work at the academic frontier of theory together with analysis of real world practice, addressing both the processes that generated the financial crisis and the remedial responses thereto.
