Suchergebnisse

The global financial crisis of 2008 ushered in the most sweeping reform of financial regulation in the United States since the New Deal. Alarmed by the systemic risk that financial institutions posed to the broader economy, as well as perceived abuses engendered by the "too big to fail" mindset among banking executives, legislators moved quickly to impose a slew of new requirements on the financial sector. These reforms, passed under the umbrella of the Dodd-Frank Act, drastically altered the regulatory landscape for financial institutions.' Wall Street firms found themselves subject to a bewildering array of new regulatory requirements, from restrictions on proprietary investing (the so-called Volcker Rule), to obligatory stress testing of banks' ability to withstand various crisis scenarios, to more stringent reporting requirements. At the same time that Congress was focused on fixing Wall Street, dramatic changes were taking place in a less well-known and still emerging sector of the financial world: the fintech sector. This collection of start-ups and venture capital-backed companies were using developments in network technology and "big data" analysis to disrupt the way that financial services could be provided. From crowdfunding to robo-advisors to Bitcoin, financial technology firms have introduced innovations to a wide variety of areas and have allowed smaller, nimbler competitors to enter the financial marketplace. In doing so, the fintech revolution promises to produce great benefits for the wider economy, including broader access to capital, fairer lending standards, better investment advice, and more secure transactions. It is no wonder that Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase's CEO, warned investors in 2015 that "Silicon Valley is coming." But the rise of fintech poses a challenge for current financial regulations. The Dodd-Frank reforms primarily aimed to prevent traditional banks from repeating the excesses of the precrisis era. They labeled certain financial institutions "systemically important" and ...

This paper summarises discussions in a workshop entitled "exploring uncertainties in biodiversity science, policy and management". It draws together experiences gained by scientists and scholars when encountering and coping with different types of uncertainty in their work in the field of biodiversity protection. The discussion covers all main phases of scientific work: field work and data analysis; methodologies; setting goals for research projects, taking simultaneously into account the agency of scientists conducting the work; developing communication with policy-makers and society at large; and giving arguments for the societal relevance of the issues. The paper concludes with a plea for collaborative learning that would build upon close cooperation among specialists who have developed expertise in different fields in research, management and politics.