My dissertation thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of the principles of securitization techniques, of their attendant shortcomings, their regulatory treatment and the recent proposals for reducing complexity in accounting standards with relevance for securitizations. The explosion of securitization and related innovative credit risk transfer products largely expanded the magnitude and diversity of issuers, investors and securities. With this expansion numerous market participants began to wrongly believe that risk was not only shared more widely, but also that it disappeared from the system altogether. The application, or to be more precise, the misapplication of securitization in the mortgage market had fatal consequences for the financial sector worldwide. Before securitization, sub-prime mortgage lenders retained the loans that they originated on their balance sheets and therefore cared about their credit quality. Securitization techniques and related innovative financial instruments enabled the export of sub-prime mortgage structural problems from the United States globe-wide via the financial intermediaries. More over, securitization techniques and related credit risk transfer products enabled single banks to reduce their individual risk while at the same time transferred new and greater risks to the financial system. Meanwhile a lot was written on the causes for the recent financial crisis. In most cases inadequate ratings provided by the credit rating agencies and different principal agent problems were addressed. I present both for completeness in my work. However, I argue that not only the credit rating agencies are to blame for the inadequate reflection of securitization and related financial innovations and subsequently for the financial turmoil. The international and national financial supervisors in fact supported the credit rating agencies to further establish their businesses. What turned obvious during and after the financial turmoil started mid-2007 is that financial regulation failed to reach its main goal - ensuring stability of the financial system. It failed despite of the "regulatory achievements within Basel II" elaborated over the past ten years. In particular, securitization and related credit risk transfer products were not adequately treated in Basel II. Securitization-related products such as Credit Derivatives on Securitization Underlyings and numerous other complex financial innovations, as presented in my thesis, were not even thought of in Basel II. In fact, Basel II turned to do little to make the financial system more resilient. The need for further revisions in banking regulation is currently more than obvious. Furthermore, it is time to ask if the developments in Basel II are the right way to address the current risks within the financial system and hence if Basel II is the right way of banking regulation and supervision altogether. With the development of both Basel Accords (Basel I and Basel II) capital ratios became the center of banking regulation. However, capital ratios are obviously not sufficient as a measure for a systemic financial stability. These questions arise at least when financial stability and soundness are still the intended objectives and believed to be ensured through Basel II. My merits in this dissertation work root in the multi-facet analysis of securitization techniques that I provide. Up to date a comparable analysis of securitization techniques which addresses the wide spectrum of securitizations' issues - such as (i) their treatment and the related attendant flaws within the regulatory framework Basel II, (ii) the various microeconomic deficiencies related to securitizations, and (iii) the implicit macroeconomic threads of exporting credit risk and de-balancing financial stability through securitization techniques - has not been provided in the comprehensive way I built up my analysis. As a basis for my analysis, I provide a new classification of the characteristics of securitization techniques which were pre-crisis wrongly perceived as benefits. I analyze the reasons for the turmoil in the financial markets in their interplay and complexity and consider securitization techniques as a key driver for the financial crisis. I comprehensively criticize the current regulatory treatment. I present in detail why the recent financial crisis should be considered a clear regulatory failure due to the up to date short-sightedness of financial regulation. Through providing partial solutions and professional author's assessment of selected regulatory and accounting changes to securitizations I deliver an expert's contribution to the topic. My conclusions are that securitization markets, as they have been operating until today, brought a negative net macroeconomic effect which has been largely damaging to the global economy. I argue that international and national financial supervisors established an inadequate framework for financial regulation and supervision, and among other failures, even supported credit rating agencies to further establish their businesses. Further on, I show that early warning indicators of systemic risk in the financial sector and signs of the coming turmoil were irresponsibly ignored at the time they were perceived. What turned obvious during and after the recent financial turmoil is that capital regulation failed to reach its main goal -- ensuring stability of the financial system. In particular, securitization and related credit risk transfer products were adequately treated neither in Basel I nor in Basel II. Finally, I conclude that capital ratios as established with the development of both Basel Accords are not sufficient as a central measure for banking regulation and ensuring systemic financial stability.

This thesis focuses on the search for accountability processes related to the standard setting powers of a transnational regulatory network that operates in the highly complex and uncertain environment of global finance: the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS). The thesis draws upon and builds on two main resources: the academic literature from international law, political science, international relations and public administration about the concept of accountability and- as a theoretical framework - Niklas Luhmann's idea of communication which suggests that communication is a selection process rather than a process of transmission. In this selection process the idea of meaning in the sense of a common understanding is paramount. The analysis focuses on the key milestones of the Basel Committee's work: the Concordat, as well as the Basel I, Basel II and Basel III accords. The thesis also draws on a qualitative original data set compiled by the author, made up of extracts of discussions of the Basel Committee's work in the international financial journalistic press. Additionally, official documents and press releases from the BCBS were coded by classifying them into common themes (such as minimum capital standards or the delay on the implementation timetable of Basel III) and the thesis' analysis assessed whether they formed part of an accountability process (i.e., whether they asked for an account, responded to an accountability claim, judged an accountability claim and referred to which consequences should follow the judgement). On the basis of this thematic analysis the thesis identifies five accountability processes in relation to the work of the Basel Committee based on communication. These revolve around the standards for minimum capital requirements in Basel II, the standards for debt exposures of banks lending to small and medium size enterprises, the over complexity of the Basel III accord, the alleged detrimental effects of the Basel accord for US banks, and the delay in the schedule to implement Basel III. Drawing on Luhmann's ideas about communicative events, the thesis develops a novel account of communicative accountability that explains accountability as the decentred and flexible communicative interaction between an accountor and an accountee whose communications have to resonate with an epistemic community. This epistemic community plays the role of a social system in which expectations about the exercise of regulatory powers of the Basel Committee are managed. The thesis argues that this process of communicative accountability can be empirically traced and that it is significantly facilitated by reliance on a shared language and expertise of a common professional community to which both the Basel Committee and a wider professional community belong to. The thesis argues that while the concept of communicative accountability developed through the research can be used to identify processes which seek to render TRNs like the BCBS accountable, these processes may also lack sufficient legitimacy, in the sense of formal power from a recognized source such as a state or an international organization underpinning these accountability processes. Increased legitimacy matters because it would enhance certainty in an accountability process and therefore, help to identify more clearly the legitimate accountor and to uphold his or her authority to ask for the account. Hence, as a whole, this thesis contributes towards the quest for alternative ways of understanding and improving accountability mechanisms in relation to the exercise of regulatory powers by globalized regulatory institutions in a transnational sphere such as the BCBS.

Diese Arbeit umfasst drei unabhängige Aufsätze, welche die Auswirkungen verschiedener regulatorischer Maßnahmen auf das Bankenrisiko und/oder die Finanzstabilität untersuchen. Zunächst wird der Einfluss von Eigenkapitalanforderungen auf den Zusammenhang zwischen Bankgröße und Volatilität analysiert. Unsere Panel-Datenanalyse zeigt, dass strengere Eigenkapitalanforderungen den Nexus zwischen Größe und Volatilität schwächt. Große Banken haben, ceteris paribus, einen weniger volatilen Kreditbestand, wenn sie strengerer Kapitalregulierung ausgesetzt sind. Gemäß dem Granularitätskonzept kann dies ebenfalls die makroökonomische Stabilität erhöhen. Als Nächstes untersuche ich, ob MiFID II die frühzeitige Informationsweitergabe über Änderungen von Analystenempfehlungen an einzelne Anleger, genannt Tipping, reduziert hat. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die absoluten Renditen und Handelsvolumina einen Tag vor Veröffentlichung einer Hoch- oder Herabstufung vor und nach Inkrafttreten von MiFID II signifikant ansteigen. Da die Aktienkurse am Veröffentlichungstag weiter steigen bzw. fallen, profitieren ausgewählte Anleger trotz der regulatorischen Änderung weiterhin von einem Informationsvorteil. Dies hat vermutlich negative Auswirkungen auf den Finanzmarkt insgesamt. Zuletzt untersuche ich wie sich die Ausgabe von Contingent Convertible (CoCo) Anleihen, die als regulatorisches zusätzliches Kernkapital (AT1) geltend gemacht werden können, auf das Bankenrisiko auswirkt. Meine Analyse zeigt, dass AT1-CoCo-Anleihen ein bis drei Jahre nach Ausgabe zu einem signifikant höheren Bankenrisiko führen. Übereinstimmend mit theoretischen Studien deutet dies darauf hin, dass CoCo-Anleihen ihr Potenzial zur Stärkung der Eigenkapitalbasis der Banken durch die regulatorischen Anforderungen genommen wurde. / This thesis comprises three independent essays evaluating the impact of different regulatory policies on bank risk and/or financial stability. First, we examine the effects of capital regulation on the link between bank size and volatility. Our panel data analysis reveals that more stringent capital regulation weakens the size-volatility nexus. Hence, large banks show, ceteris paribus, lower loan portfolio volatility when facing more stringent capital regulation. According to the granularity concept, that can increase macroeconomic stability. Next, I evaluate if MiFID II reduced the early information disclosure on analyst recommendation changes to selected investors - so-called tipping. I find absolute returns and turnover rise significantly on the day preceding the up- or downgrade release before and after MiFID II became law. Given that stock prices move further in the revision direction on publication day, selected investors continue to profit from an informational advantage, notwithstanding the regulatory change. That is likely harmful to the financial market overall. Lastly, I examine the impact of issuing contingent convertible (CoCo) bonds that qualify as regulatory additional tier 1 (AT1) capital on bank risk. My treatment effects analysis reveals that issuing AT1 CoCo bonds results in significantly higher risk-taking one to three years after the issuance. That is in line with previous theoretical studies suggesting that regulators have stripped CoCo bonds of their potential to strengthen the banks’ capital bases.