In these excerpts from "The Squam Lake Report", fifteen distinguished economists analyze where the global financial system failed, and how such failures might be prevented (or at least their damage better contained) in the future. Although there were many contributing factors to the...

There have been several cases in recent years-most notably, Chrysler-in which shareholders have objected to the level of companies' holdings of cash and other liquid assets. This paper describes the authors' study of the determinants of liquid asset holdings by publicly traded U.S. firms and how...

The Chief Risk Officer of Nationwide Insurance teams up with a distinguished academic to discuss the benefits and challenges associated with the design and implementation of an enterprise risk management program. The authors begin by arguing that a carefully designed ERM program-one in which all...

International financial markets are progressively becoming one huge, integrated, global capital market-a development that is contributing to higher stock prices in developed as well as developing economies. For companies that are large and visible enough to attract global investors, having a...

This paper presents a theory of corporate risk management that attempts to go beyond the "variance-minimization" model that dominates most academic discussions of the subject. It argues that the primary goal of risk management is not to dampen swings in corporate cash flows or value, but rather...