In the racially tense late 1960s, Kinloch Missouri was a politically autonomous Black community of nearly 10,000 residents, composed of African-Americans who were free to plan and conduct their own municipal affairs by whatever means they chose to try and improve their conditions. The town was...

Public employee pension systems around the world show remarkable diversity in design and execution. Among these, the U.S. defined benefit public pension system has drawn increased attention because of questions about the long-term sustainability of many of the underlying pension funds – as...

Concerns about the future of the natural environment, prevailing social conditions, and governance of private and public institutions inspire today's ESG movement. None of these concerns are new. But they have gained much traction from the techno-communication revolution alongside a growing...

Concerns about the future of the natural environment, prevailing social conditions, and governance of private and public institutions inspire today's ESG movement. This paper proposes a heuristic that can be useful in examining the ESG-scoring issue. We begin with a social control diagnostic...

Concerns about the future of the natural environment, prevailing social conditions, and governance of private and public institutions inspire today's ESG movement. This paper proposes a heuristic that can be useful in examining the ESG-scoring issue. We begin with a social control diagnostic...

This paper attempts to define reputational risk and to outline the sources of such risk facing large international banks. It then considers the key drivers of reputational risk in the presence of transactions costs and imperfect information, and surveys available empirical research on the impact...

Underfunding of U.S. public pensions is a chronic policy issue that has become more severe over time. Public pension obligations were estimated at $5.96 trillion at the end of 2017 supported by assets of $4.33 trillion — a shortfall of $1.63 trillion and a ‘funded-ratio' of 72.6%. We...

A focal point in strategic and regulatory debates about the pros and cons of diversification among financial institutions continues to be the issue of economies of scope in financial intermediation. In this paper, we summarize the theoretical research on the value of diversification in financial...

Consolidation has been a fact of life in the wholesale financial services sector, resulting in fundamental change in the financial architecture and public exposure to systemic risk. The underlying drivers include advances in transactions and information technologies, regulatory changes,...

Infrastructure and its effects on economic growth, social welfare, and sustainability receive a great deal of attention today. There is widespread agreement that infrastructure is a key dimension of global development and that its impact reaches deep into the broader economy with important and...