The 2008 global financial crisis was a rude awakening for financial regulators. In its wake, a novel approach called macroprudential policy became an important pillar of financial regulation. But in the years after the crisis, the stringency of macroprudential policy outputs vary across countries, across specific financial sectors, and across time, a worrying reality given that uneven regulation across borders and sectors was one of the exacerbating factors of the 2008 crisis. What explains this cross-country, cross-sectoral and cross-temporal variations in macroprudential policy? This dissertation argues that when the political salience of financial regulation is high, politicians are more likely to intervene in regulatory affairs to impose their policy preferences. But in times when salience is low, it is the policy orientation of the regulators – the “tamers of finance” – that primarily shape the stringency of macroprudential policy. In institutional settings with multiple financial regulators who hold conflicting policy orientations, this bureaucratic tension is likely to increase policy stringency. This theoretical framework is tested through an in-depth comparative historical analysis of the banking and asset management sectors in the United States and Japan. In the US banking sector, regulators to impose highly stringent macroprudential policies in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, but they began to loosen these policies at the margins from 2017. The US asset management sector, on the other hand, was characterized by policies of moderate stringency in the wake of the crisis, and again after 2014. In the Japanese banking case, the crucial financial crisis for determining macroprudential policy outcomes came not in 2008 but in the late 1990s, when the government was compelled to contain a banking crisis and implemented highly stringent policies. After 2008, therefore, Japanese regulators could afford to implement policies of only moderate stringency. Finally, the Japanese asset management sector remains untouched by macroprudential policy because both politicians and regulators gradually deregulated and liberalized to this sector, which historically struggled to grow, and have not felt the need to enact macroprudential policies. In all, this analysis broadly confirms the theoretical framework set forth in this dissertation. / Political Science

In research, there has been conflicting theory and evidence about the relation between creditor rights and corporate leverage. On the one hand, the supply-side view states that stronger creditor rights lead to an increased supply of credit and hence, corporate leverage increases. On the other hand, the demand-side view shows that in response to better protected creditors, managers choose to follow low-risk strategies and reduce leverage. The goal of this thesis is to develop a better understanding of the relation between creditor rights and corporate leverage. This work contributes to this stream of literature by using a large sample including 508,376 firm-years from 46,481 unique firms located in 55 countries from 1980 to 2017. The results of this thesis show that demand-side forces dominate supply-side forces as stronger creditor rights lead to a reduction of corporate leverage. Moreover, a crises variable is added as a moderator to investigate how firms change their response to creditor rights during crises. However, the results for this interaction are insignificant and hence, firms do not seem to adopt their leverage levels in response to creditor rights during crises compared to normal times.

This dissertation examines the social construction of American federal bankruptcy law from the Gilded Age to the post-World War II Era. Across the nineteenth century, federal legislators vociferously debated whether a federal bankruptcy statute would facilitate the extension of business credit across state lines or be employed by creditors to oppress small traders, farmers, and wage earners. After the law’s enactment in 1898, however, this debate largely disappeared. By the period following the Second World War, bankruptcy was an accepted means for working class debtors to obtain debt relief, either immediately or after paying their creditors out of their future wages. Across four chapters, I explore the factors associated with this shift. How did bankruptcy become an accepted part of the American political economy and welfare state? To answer these questions, I analyze new samples of census-linked bankruptcy petitions in comparison with survey data on working class debtors, a corpus of Congressional speech and media, and archival data on relevant policy actors. Social reformers’ efforts to create “fair” credit markets through Small Loan Laws (SLL), alongside rising bankruptcy rates, ultimately naturalized a conception of bankruptcy as morally “caused” by debtors, apart from creditor choices or malfeasance. As SLLs reduced real interest rates, they also led lenders to collateralize their relative risks through extending credit in states where it was legal to garnish debtors’ wages. In doing so, SLLs inadvertently spurred credit extension based on wages rather than property. The conception that debtors “caused” bankruptcy, in turn, led Great Depression Era legislators to focus on delineating who was “deserving” of bankruptcy protections and how insolvent individuals could prove their future “creditworthiness” and reenter financial markets. The 1938 Bankruptcy Act established a voluntary wage-earner payment system (Chapter XIII) for “deserving” white men while also formalizing provisions for immediate debt discharge (Chapter VII). Yet when few wage earners decided to “honorably” pay their debts over time, judicial actors in post-World War II America employed Chapter XIII bankruptcy as a debt collection system that reduced lenders’ risks against “undeserving” bankrupts. As Black people increasingly sought debt relief through bankruptcy protections, they were directed to Chapter XIII, irrespective of their economic interests. These payment plans increased the time and money that Black bankrupts needed to pay in order to regain their economic citizenship.

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L'ÉPI a, depuis ses débuts, prétendu faire le pont entre l'économie et le politique. Or, le domaine de la finance reste peu étudié en ÉPI. Quelques auteurs ont déjà remarqué ce phénomène mais personne ne l'a étudié systématiquement. Après cette revue de littérature, nous somme en mesure de confirmer cette négligence. De plus, nous tentons de comprendre la manière dont les politologues conceptualisent les marchés financiers en cherchant à savoir s'ils empruntent à la science économique ses conceptions sur les marchés efficients. Nous concluons que la négligence des marchés financiers dans la littérature en ÉPI se manifeste par un certain degré de réification du Marché. Nous observons aussi que les auteurs en ÉPI qui ont traité des crises monétaires empruntent fréquemment une conception des marchés efficients : celle de l'omniscience des marchés.

Cette thèse démontre que la dynamique d’intégration peut expliquer l’instabilité financière d’une économie. Sur le plan théorique, nous analysons les éventuelles non-linéarités dans l’effet de la libéralisation financière sur la stabilité externe. Sur le plan empirique, nous proposons les modèles à seuil comme alternative aux modèles linéaires conventionnelles. Notre thèse se subdivise en 4 chapitres. Le premier chapitre revisite le débat sur la nature de l’effet exercé par l’intégration financière sur la stabilité externe. Le second chapitre analyse l’intégration financière et la structure d’intermédiation dans les régions les plus assujettis à des sévères crises. Les crises financières majeures se sont survenues au sein de dynamiques non-optimales d’intégration. Le troisième chapitre présente deux modélisations régionales de la relation Intégration financière/Pressions spéculatives. La première démontre que la libéralisation financière accroit les pressions spéculatives au-delà d’un degré seuil. En outre, l’évolution au sein d’une dynamique non-optimale d’intégration accroit les tensions de change dès les premières étapes d’intégration. La seconde recherche préconise que l’effet « pressions spéculatives » du processus d’intégration dépend de la matrice (dynamique d’intégration/ structure financière). Les économies basées sur les crédits bancaires semblent être moins vulnérable aux tensions de change. Le dernier chapitre s’intéresse à l’effet de la dynamique d’intégration sur la vulnérabilité des économies du Moyen-Orient et d'Afrique du Nord aux crises de change. Le premier essai démontre que le maintien d’une dynamique optimale d’intégration retarde le changement structurel dans l’effet de la libéralisation financière sur les tensions de change. Le second essai signale que l’excès de la libéralisation financière constitue un déterminant de la stabilité de change. Désormais ce n’est plus le choix de la séquence d’intégration qui détermine la stabilité de change mais plutôt c’est le maintien d’une dynamique optimale d’intégration. Notre réflexion peut fournir les fondements d’une théorie de dynamique optimale d’intégration. / This thesis demonstrates that the integration dynamics can explain exchange instabilities. Theoretically, we discuss the possible non-linearity in the effect of financial liberalization. Empirically, we suggest the threshold models as an alternative to traditional linear models. Our thesis is divided into 4 chapters. The first chapter re-examines the debate on the financial liberalization impacts on external stability. The second chapter analyses the financial integration and the intermediation structure in the regions the most impacted by severe financial crises. These crises have been produced within non-optimal integration dynamics. Chapter three analyses two regional investigations of the relationship between financial integration and speculative pressures. The first analysis demonstrates that the financial integration increases the speculative pressures once the degree of financial liberalization exceeds a specific threshold. The second investigation suggests that the effect “exchange instabilities” of the financial integration process depends on the matrix financial structure versus liberalization dynamics. The bank-dominated systems seem to be less financially vulnerable than the market-dominated ones. The final chapter focuses on the effect of integration dynamics on MENA economies 'vulnerability to exchange crises. The first investigation suggests that the preservation of an optimal liberalization dynamic has delayed the structural break in the relationship between speculative pressures and financial liberalization. The second investigation outlines that the excess of financial liberalization constitutes an important determinant of exchange stability. It is no longer the choice of integration sequence which determines exchange imbalances, but rather the preservation of an optimal dynamic of integration. As a final contribution, our investigations can provide specific theoretical guidelines related to the optimal dynamic of integration

La France bénéficie d'une place de choix au Liban, en grande partie due à l'histoire pluriséculaire qui lie les deux pays. La culture et la langue, d'une part, mais aussi l'administration, le système éducatif et juridique, d'autre part, portent l'empreinte française. Par ailleurs, le Liban est un pays francophone qui a été l'un des premiers à participer à la construction d'une Francophonie institutionnelle, avant d'y adhérer de plein droit. Afin de comprendre le contexte dans lequel la France a mené son action au Liban, nous allons dans une première partie retracer l'histoire des relations franco-libanaises. Nous nous focaliserons, toutefois, sur les crises de 2005 et de 2006. Dans une deuxième partie, nous nous intéresserons à la place de la francophonie au Liban, avant de lier ou de délier les notions de « francophonie » et de « francophilie ». Nous ferons ensuite une étude sur les stéréotypes associés à la France par les Libanais, que nous compléterons avec celle des stéréotypes des Libanais sur les autres acteurs étatiques. Nous verrons ainsi dans quelle mesure l'image de la France a pu bénéficier ou, au contraire, souffrir de l'action de l'État français au Liban pendant les crises de 2005 et de 2006. Notre travail repose sur la base d'un corpus principal constitué d'une série d'entretiens semi-directifs menés au Liban, ainsi que d'un corpus d'articles de presse, auquel a été greffé un corpus secondaire de vérification. / France enjoys a privileged status in Lebanon, mainly due to the centuries-long history that both countries share. The culture and the language, on one side, but also the administration, the educational and legal systems, on the other side, were greatly influenced by France. Besides, Lebanon is a Francophone country which was among the first that helped build the institutionnal Francophonie, before joigning the organization as a full member. In order to have an understanding of the Lebanese background in which France was evolving, we will trace the history of French-Lebanese relations in a first part. However, our focus will be on the 2005 and 2006 Lebanese crises. In a second part, we will concentrate on the importance of francophonie in Lebanon, before working on tying or untying the notions of "francophonie" and "francophilia". We will then study the French stereotypes in Lebanon, as well as those associated with the other major state actors. We will therefore see to which extent the image of France has benefited, or rather suffered, from the French State's action in the 2005 and 2006 Lebanese crises. Our work is based on a main corpus consisting of a series of semi-directive interviews conducted in Lebanon, as well as of a corpus of press articles, to which we added a secondary corpus.

As crises financeiras são processos de perdas decorrentes do mecanismo do mercado financeiro. Elas afetam as instituições do sistema financeiro e por meio do processo de contágio se espalham por ele, algumas vezes analogamente ao efeito dominó. Este processo pode levar muitas instituições financeiras saudáveis a se tornarem insolventes. Isso acontece porque os agentes econômicos estão interligados por meio de relações contratuais e se tornam dependentes uns aos outros. O risco sistêmico pode ser entendido como o risco de uma grande perda em um sistema. O presente trabalho tem como objetivo utilizar as propriedades de um modelo de contágio, proposto para estudar os efeitos da propagação de crises financeiras, bem como a mensuração do risco sistêmico no sistema interbancário. Este problema foi investigado considerando três diferentes topologias de rede: Erdös-Rényi, Livre de Escala (ou Scale-Free) e Interbancária Empírica. A escolha destas topologias foi pelo fato de que duas delas - Livre de Escala e Interbancária Empírica - podem emular o sistema bancário real e a de Erdös-Rényi ter sido utilizada em diversos modelos da literatura. Cada nó representa um banco que possui balanço patrimonial constituído de passivos (patrimônio líquido, empréstimos e depósitos) e ativos (empréstimos, títulos e valores mobiliários). Foi analisada a influência da alavancagem do sistema, da probabilidade inicial de default e do número de clusters da rede Interbancária Empírica. O risco sistêmico foi medido utilizando o Indicador de Risco Sistêmico, o Índice de Risco Sistêmico e o VaR Sistêmico. Mostrou-se que as redes Livres de Escala são mais robustas em relação aos ataques aleatórios evitando o aumento da inadimplência. O aumento abrupto do impacto causados pela crise acontece devido ao aumento do grau de alavancagem do sistema. O número de clusters da rede Interbancária Empírica impacta a robustez do sistema. O modelo reproduz o resultado conhecido como Muito Interconectado para Falhar, que é quando bancos mais interconectados oferecem maior risco ao sistema. / The financial crises are processes of losses arising from financial market mechanism. They affect the institutions of the financial system by the process of contagion. Sometimes it is equal to the domino effect. This process can make many healthy financial institutions become insolvents. It happens because economic agents are interconnected through contractual relations and become dependent on each other. Systemic risk can be understood as the risk of a huge loss in a system. The present work aims to study the properties of a contagion model proposed to study the effects of the spread of financial crises, as well as the measurement of systemic risk in the interbank system. This problem was investigated considering three different network topologies: Erdös-Rényi, Scale-Free and Empirical Interbank. The choice of these topologies was made by the fact that two of them - Scale-Free and Empirical Interbank - may emulate the real banking system and Erdös-Rényi has been used in several models in the literature. Each node is a bank and consists on a balance sheet split as liabilities (equity, borrowings and deposits) and assets (lendings, bonds and securities). It was analyzed the influence of the coefficient of leverage, the influence of the initial probability of default and the influence of the number of clusters on the Empirical Interbank. The systemic risk was measured using the Systemic Risk Indicator, Systemic Index and Systemic Value at Risk. It was shown that Scale-Free networks are more robust against random attacks, avoiding increases in the number of defaults. The abrupt increase in the impact caused by the crisis happens due to the increase in coefficient of leverage. The number of clusters on Empirical Interbank network impacts the robustness of the system. The model reproduces the result known as Too Interconnected to Fail, that is, banks more interconnected offer higher risk to the system.

The current economic crisis has affected all aspects of life, which has resulted in political instability, personal financial troubles, and a growing number of business bankruptcies. While these are serious issues, simply developoing a government policy that injects an economy with money is not an appropriate means to achieve economic recovery and long-term economic development unless combined with an effective and efficient governing system. The present research studies whether the strong relationship between governance and growth exists during economic crises or only during non-crisis periods. The results of the current research show that the global economic crisis has had an influence on the relationship between governance and economic growth. In addition, this study found that different levels of development affect the relationship between governance and growth differently during times of crisis. Consequently, the results of the current research show the instability in the relationship between governance and economic growth during the economic crisis ; this unsteadiness is a sign of the need for long-term strategies to promote global and national good governance practices that are not adversely affected by crises. / by Bassam A. Albassam. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.