Meeting

All day

Our campus is closed to the public for this event.

What causes financial risk? What causes financial crises? Under mainstream equilibrium theory these questions have a trivial answer. Financial risk is measured in terms of volatility, the size of price fluctuations. If all investors are rational then prices are always set correctly, and changes in prices passively reflect the arrival of new information. The arrival of new information is exogenous, i.e. it is generated outside of financial markets. Markets are merely responding to and interpreting events in the economy without affecting them. A crash is just a big price move, occasioned by the sudden receipt of large negative information.

This can’t be right. The mainstream view of financial risk has come under attack for a variety of reasons. For example, there are patterns in the temporal behavior of volatility that cry out for explanation. SFI’s new research initiative on Financial Risk uses both empirical and theoretical methods to understand the origins of financial risk. This meeting will endeavor to shed new light on what causes financial risk, developing new quantitative theories for market behavior and changing our view of the factors that markets depend on. This event is sponsored by Morgan Stanley.

If you do not see videos and you are logged in, please refresh the page. 

A Theory of Reflexivity

AuthorsGeorge Soros

Evolution of Risk Measures: Theoretical Review & Application to the Credit Crunch

AuthorsBernd Scherer

Welcome and Introduction

AuthorsMichael Mauboussin

Understanding Risk from a Complex Systems Perspective: A Brief History

AuthorsJ. Doyne Farmer

The Endowment Model: Theory and Experience

AuthorsMartin Leibowitz

Questions and Discussion

AuthorsJ. Doyne Farmer and Michael Maubsoussin

The Quant Liquidity Crunch

AuthorsKent Daniel