The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008 was a serious economic downturn which affected economies around the world. Like many other areas of investment, pension funds were heavily affected by this crisis. Prior to the GFC, a combination of financial innovation, demand for higher returns, overdependence on ratings agencies and investor complacency increased the severity of the crisis on investors, including those in pensions. As a result of the crisis, we can conclude that there have been changes in the attitudes towards asset management for pension funds. Investors have generally become more conservative when investing, and are placing a greater emphasis on the risk/return profile of investments. In addition, investors have learned that liquidity risk is an important consideration when investing, and that they should always consider the fundamentals of investing when they are making investment decisions. Finally, those investing in pensions should remember that pension investment is a long-term strategy and should not be overly alarmed by an economic downturn such as that of the GFC.

The Financial Crisis of 2008 not only impacted Wall Street but also the finance and insurance sectors in Taiwan. The significance of this financial downturn was such that even one of the largest and the most time-honored ¡§A¡¨ International Group could not escape hardship. The firm in question was a recipient of U.S. financial bailout by funding by the U.S. government. Due to the need to repay the loan, the ¡§N¡¨ Taiwan Insurance Company, a subsidiary of the U.S. ¡§A¡¨ International Group faced a major threat to its very existence: complete liquidation by the ¡§A¡¨ International Group. The parent ¡§A¡¨ International Group made the irrevocable decision to sell the ¡§N¡¨ Insurance Company, as the only means by which a portion of the bailout loan could be covered. The impact of this decision was immediately felt in Taiwan. But the sale process nearly three years and finalized as a merger with a local investment firm. Considerable organizational change occurred within the ¡§N¡¨ Insurance Company post-merger. It continued throughout the acquisitions period of the ¡§N¡¨ Insurance Company by other entities. Through in-depth interviews with different levels of employees and actual customers of the ¡§N¡¨ Insurance Company, the study analyzed how transformational leadership formed, and then actuated the organizational change which was to take place. In addition, this study offers a clear understanding of the connection between organizational change and overall performance by individual cases-by-case basis. The ¡§N¡¨ Insurance Company faced a three-year reversal-of-fortunes during the merger period. The company experienced many crises, including a collapse of productivity, immeasurable financial losses and a loss of market share as a main insurance provider in the lucrative Taiwan market. After the eventual sale, the company¡¦s case settled down and a newly appointed CEO who came from an investment bank and lead the organizational change, announced future directions and new operational strategies. By implementing numerous plans in all key areas of the company, business production rose 283% within the subsequent six months, and regained the ¡§Top 3 Spot¡¨ in Taiwan¡¦s competitive insurance marketplace. This study is based on the ¡§N¡¨ Insurance Company. A transformational model is presented which originated from research on related business materials and in-depth interviews. Furthermore, the leadership is examined regarding how organizational change was affected, how leadership penetrated the entire organizational structure, and how it lead to a rapid transformation resulting in substantial benefit through a singular vision. It is hoped that this study will provide some practical strategies and valuable experiences of the role of transformational management during a time of financial calamity.

The study is based on the financial statistics published by the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) to analysis the behavior of Taiwan credit cardholders after the dual card crisis and the global financial storm. In the meantime, the data as of September and November 2008 is applied to examine the impact of credit cardholders in different segments who have cash needs after the regulation implementation. The study concludes that: 1. The behavior of credit cardholders impacted by the dual card crisis and the global financial storm Using various statistical charts and one-way ANOVA analysis can be found that after the dual card crisis and global financial storm, the revolving credit balance of credit card market reduced year by year. Obviously, a correct concept of card usage is established gradually. Cardholders should not only enjoy the convenience of credit card, but also control the burden of over spending. 2. The cash advance amount deteriorated due to FSC regulation implementation After a series of guided actions launched by FSC, people no longer rely on credit card as a financing tool but treat it as a payment implement. The amount of cash advance shrink while the cardholders who have cash advance need get financing from personal loan. 3. The impact is various between each segment by regulation Using Independent-Sample T Test, it is found that there are no significant differences in credit card cash advance features for cardholders who have debt burden ratio greater than 22 times of the monthly income, the internal employee, and cardholders whose credit line is greater than NT$800,000.

The collapse of subprime loan markets in the United States in 2007 sparked a global financial crisis. With the fallout of subprime loan storm, the global economy has been in serious recession. In addition to the financial stagnation, other industries have been also affected. According to the estimation by International Labor Organization (ILO), the global unemployment population in 2009 will be more than 200 millions. The continued rising of misery index and losing confidence among the public become the motivation for inspiring the researcher to explore this issue. The research aims to understand the financial storm and explore the cause of the subprime financial storm through the reviews and reorganization of literature. In light of the cyclical and repetitive nature of financial crisis, if we could find the leverage solution to the subprime loan storm, it will be a useful reference for dealing with possible financial crises in future. This research adopted literature analysis method and history study to collect data and explain the feedback viewpoint of the operation of the subprime loan storm through casual loop diagram (CLD). Through the reorganization of related literature, this research found the historical cause of the subprime loan storm. We also constructed a causal feedback diagram of the formation of subprime loan storm by the archetypes. Furthermore, we found out the leverage solution that might effectively curb subprime loan storm in the causal feedback diagram. This research presents three conclusions: 1) three reasons for the formation of the structure of subprime loan storm: a. the building-up of Black-Scholes Model; b. the regulations on the capital adequacy rates and commodity derivatives in Basel Agreement; c. the domination of performance; 2) the policy factors for the formation of the structure of subprime loan storm: the over-adjustment of rate policy by Fed; 3) the implicit factors for the formation of the structure of subprime loan storm: the effects of moral decline. In the last part, the research recommends six fundamental solutions for the subprime loan problem according to the leverage solution to the subprime loan storm: 1) the de-leverage of commodity derivatives; 2) the strict self-management of internal control and audit system in banks; 3) the adjustment of performance-dominated culture; 4) the promotion of moral education; 5) the pace of adjustment of rate policy by Fed should be slowed down; 6) the governments should adopt fiscal policy as much as they can.

<p> </p><p>This bachelor thesis examines the credit market behaviour in the Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway), post financial liberalization, during the late 1980´s and early 1990´s. The explanatory variables used to determine bank lending are the time lags of bank lending, property prices, GDP and interest rates.</p><p>The variables’ impact on bank lending is tested and displayed by using an OLS model,presented by Goodhart and Hofmann (2007), and descriptive statistics.</p><p>The rolling OLS regressions show that during times of financial liberalization, property prices had an increased effect on real bank lending in Sweden and Finland. The same investigation method supports that although positive, property prices’ effect on lending did not increase in Norway and Denmark. Even so, investigations suggest that one should be careful to assume too many similarities between the countries in the causing factors of the crises. The crises occurred roughly during the same time, and the geographical connection is obvious, however each country’s individual factors differed from each other.</p><p> </p>

The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on March 19, 2010). Thesis advisor: Dr. Charles Davis. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis explores the experience – experience itself – of the economic crisis in Iceland 2008. This exploration takes its starting point in personal stories that together form a mythic narrative about the crisis in which the causes of the crisis are retroactively invented through the construction of a phantasmagoria. Since the reason for the stories peculiar form – their retroactive invention of the crisis’ causes – cannot be accounted for by the stories themselves, the stories are approached a symptoms of an experience that for some reason is articulated through a myth, rather than with the language of political economy, and this despite the fact that their narrators have experienced the consequences of a collapsed economic system. This thesis attempt to trace and formulate the experience that has given the personal stories illustrated in this thesis their mythic form.

The fund industry has grown tremendously over the last decades and the function for mutual funds and their managers have gained importance. Sweden is today the greatest fund saving country in the world however the function of the mutual funds and their managers is still rather unexplored. Mutual fund managers were blamed for the recent financial crisis and their irrational behavior was highlighted. This indicated how weak the classic financial theories are when trying to explain the function of human behavior and the irrationality in the market.  Behavioral aspects for fund managers are greater than previously thought and there is a need to incorporate this better in the financial theories. The financial crisis together with the possibility of earning excess return over a long time period has indicated that the markets are not efficient. The confidence for mutual fund managers from the public is low because of the last financial crisis. There is a need for more regulation, better-suited payment schemes, greater transparency and products that everyone can understand in order to raise the confidence back to the previous level.

Although financial innovations and deregulations are often argued to be one of the main causes of the current global financial crises, there are only a few cross-country empirical evidences. Using several proxy variables for different types of innovations and regulations of a total of 132 countries, this thesis analyzes the effects of various types of financial innovations and regulations on several types of financial crisis such as currency crisis and banking crisis, for countries with different income levels. The thesis shows that financial innovation in the form of securitization has a negative effect on a country’s financial stability, while stronger regulations in the form of restrictions on bank activities and entry requirements are positively associated with the financial stability. However, judicious implementation of financial regulations is required to cope with the financial crisis because some types of regulations, if implemented simultaneously, have countervailing effects and may exacerbate the financial crisis.

This study also showed how inter-connected the world is because the global financial crisis started in one part of the world but affected every country worldwide. The global financial crisis made it necessary to revisit the writings of the British economist John Maynard Keynes who is considered one of the most influential economists of the 20th century and one of the fathers of modern macroeconomics. He advocated an interventionist form of government policy, believing markets left to their own devices could be destructive, leading to cycles of recessions, depressions and booms. That is what the world witnessed during the global financial crisis. Keynes ideas helped rebuild economies after World War II, until the 1970s when his ideas were abandoned for freer market systems. What then happened was regulation began to weaken as the world economies started to recover. This scenario is likely to repeat itself even when the financial crisis is over. Market capitalism is still going to dominate the world economies because in as much as transaction will be regulated but the behaviour of finance institutions will be difficult to regulate. During the period under review, the South African financial sector and the mining industry felt the impact of the global financial crisis as shown in this study. Despite signs of a turnaround in economic activity in South Africa, financial systems are still vulnerable to risk and a renewed loss of confidence. The adverse feedback effects from the real economy, therefore, remain a concern and present new challenges for safeguarding the stability of the global financial system. The global economic crisis offers an opportunity for South Africa to act and provide long term solutions. Strict regulation should be applied not only to the financial sector but to smaller business entities as well. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2011.