Econ financial marketing

Requirements:

(1)  6-8 pages of text (your name, course number, title on the first page) plus a list of references.

Begin in this form:

[name]

ECON 367-01

17 April 2017

[title, centered]

(2)  Clear structure and organization

(3)  Written grammatically

(4)  Proper citations and list of references (according to the Chicago Manual of Style author-date style, which is pretty much the standard format for economics papers; there is a summary on the Dominican website at http://research.dom.edu/c.php?g=65268&p=420588  and you can refer to two PDFs which I have included on Canvas under the instructions for these assignments.

(5)  Always with adequate sourcing (see Dominican University’s policy on plagiarism which you can find on the Dominican University website http://research.dom.edu/citationstyles    ).

Schedule:

(1) Topic by Friday, 10 February

(1) Outline by Friday24February

(2) First version by Friday 17March.

(3) Final version by Monday 17 April

Suggested Paper Topics for ECON 367 Financial Markets and Institutions

The following suggestions are merely suggestions – if you have a different question that you want to pursue write about that.  However, the questions for the following possible topics should give you an idea of the sort of questions you should be asking and answering for whatever topic you choose.  (The order of these suggestions is random – just as they came to mind.)

1. Shadow banking: what does it mean? what effect does it have on financial markets.
2. Role and importance of individual investors
3. Early history of banks (in ancient times; in the middle ages; in the Renaissance)
4. Mortgage banking: what is its function in the financial system?
5. Central bank of (whatever country or region is interesting)
6. Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF): what are they? how big are they? which ones are important? what effect do they have on financial markets?
7. Structured Investment Vehicles (SIVs): what are they? are they important? what is their role in financial markets? why are they controversial?
8. Stock exchanges (or choose one stock exchange): how do they (does it) function? how are they (is it) governed? how are they (is it) regulated?
9. Commodity (futures) exchanges (or choose one such exchange): how do they (does it) function? how are they (is it) governed? how are they (is it) regulated?
10. History or origins of exchanges (in Europe; in Japan; elsewhere)
11. Origin of the corporation (joint-stock company)
12. Limited liability: what does this mean? how has it been important in the development of modern financial markets and institutions?
13. Speculation in stocks, futures, etc. – its role, function, current controversies.
14. Should speculation be prohibited or limited?
15. The Volcker Rule: what does it mean? who is Paul Volcker? will this rule be adopted? will it eliminate some problems? will it cause some problems?
16. Hawala: what is it? is it still important?
17. High-frequency trading: what does this mean? It is very controversial – why? Will new regulations eliminate it or restrict it?
18. Pension funds: their role in the financial market; their size and importance?
19. Merchant banking: what is it (or was it)? functions; difference from current financial institutions.
20. Foreign exchange market: describe it; how big is it? who are the participants? how important is it?
21. Bond/stock/derivatives dealers: what is their role in the financial system? are they profitable? are they honest?
22. Bond/stock/derivatives brokers: what is their role in the financial shystem? are they profitable? are they honest?
23. Islamic finance: describe it; how does it differ from conventional finance? how    important is it now?
24. Importance of life insurance in financial markets
25. The decision between debt and equity corporate finance: how does a corporation decide whether to use debt or equity? which is more important quantitatively? what are the advantages of each?.
26. Describe a recent or an upcoming IPO: how was it (or will it be) valued? who are (or will be) the investors? who are the current owners? why did they decide to go public? did its issue price meet expectations?
27. Describe a recent Treasury auction: what was the maturity of the issue? did it replace maturing debt or was it all “new money”? at what yield was it auctioned, and was that higher or lower than the expected yield? how was the coupon rate decided? who were they buyers? how did the market react?
28. Describe a recent corporate bond sale: who issued the bond? how big as the bond? what was the interest rate? who was the underwriter? why did the corporation issue the bond? was it regarded as successful?.
29. Recent investigations into manipulation of LIBOR market or foreign exchange market: what (allegedly) happened? who (allegedly) did it? how? why? what was the effect? who is investigating? what are possible penalties? what changes in market practices might be (of have been) instituted?