The explosive growth of the ABCP market between 2004 and 2007: A "search for yield" story

The years immediately preceding the financial crisis of 2007 witnessed an explosive growth in the supplies both of the long-term securities issued by the shadow banking entities, the asset-backed securities (ABSs) and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), and of the short-term securities issued by these entities, notably asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP). Although there is now some acknowledgment that the search for yield was the major driver of ABS and CDO growth in the United States, the same is not true of the U.S. ABCP market where other factors such as regulatory arbitrage on the part of banks or the safety and liquidity concerns of institutional investors are seen as having been the more important growth driving force. This article argues that the search for yield did play a crucial role in U.S. ABCP growth between 2004 and 2007. To back up this argument, the article points to four variables that were closely correlated with this growth: the federal funds rate; U.S. money market mutual funds asset holdings; the change in the geographical breakdown of the institutions supplying ABCP; and, finally, the change in the program breakdown of the ABCP market

GEOMATICS AND CIVIL ENGINEERING INNOVATIVE RESEARCH ON HERITAGE: INTRODUCING THE “ENGINEER” PROJECT

This paper aims to introduce the concept and objectives of a recently supported European project entitled “Geomatics and Civil Engineering Innovative Research on Heritage”, in short ENGINEER. The ENGINEER project visions to enhance and extend inter-departmental multidisciplinary research activities of the Department of Civil Engineering & Geomatics of the Cyprus University of Technology through coordination and support actions as well as through targeted research activities with the support of European leading institutions. Project tasks aim to fill research multidisciplinary gaps, push, and extend knowledge into new and innovative fields dealing with the monitoring, digitization, visualization, and preservation of ancient monuments and cultural heritage sites, assisting their protection, promotion, and safeguarding

Documentation and Structural Appraisal of the Medieval Manor of Potamia, Cyprus: an Interdisciplinary Approach

This paper aims to present, via a case study, an interdisciplinary approach towards the comprehensive analysis of historic constructions. The case study monument examined is the Medieval Manor of Potamia in Cyprus. The work hereby presented was based on a collaboration between scientists from the fields of archeology, architecture, materials science/ conservation and structural engineering. A thorough review of historical sources was initially carried out in order to obtain data concerning the history and construction development of the Manor. Extensive field work was undertaken to study the architectural typology and construction detailing of the structures and to explicitly map the various agents of pathology. For the characterization of the historic fabric, masonry materials were sampled and studied at the laboratory. The accumulated data facilitated the development of a Finite Element (FE) model, which was used to numerically assess the structure’s seismic response

GEOMATICS AND CIVIL ENGINEERING INNOVATIVE RESEARCH ON HERITAGE: INTRODUCING THE “ENGINEER” PROJECT

This paper aims to introduce the concept and objectives of a recently supported European project entitled “Geomatics and Civil Engineering Innovative Research on Heritage”, in short ENGINEER. The ENGINEER project visions to enhance and extend inter- departmental multidisciplinary research activities of the Department of Civil Engineering & Geomatics of the Cyprus University of Technology through coordination and support actions as well as through targeted research activities with the support of European leading institutions. Project tasks aim to fill research multidisciplinary gaps, push, and extend knowledge into new and innovative fields dealing with the monitoring, digitization, visualization, and preservation of ancient monuments and cultural heritage sites, assisting their protection, promotion, and safeguarding

An evolutionary approach to international political economy: the case of corporate tax avoidance

Corporate tax avoidance is both widespread and diverse in its practical mechanics. The scope of the phenomenon often leads economists to conclude that in the jungle of economic competition, tax planning (or optimisation) is among the necessary tools to ensure the survival of the fittest. This theory is increasingly associated with a Darwinian theory of economic evolution. In this paper, I develop a contrasting framework of the evolutionary political economy of corporate tax avoidance. Analysing core concepts of Old Institutionalist Economics (OIE), I examine the core drivers of corporate tax avoidance in a globalised system of states. The major contrast, I find, is between that of the corporate and legal personality and the institutional environment in which it operates. Historically, each corporate entity has been considered a separate legal person, yet a series of ‘mutations’ of incorporations laws created a widening gap between theory and reality, and these, in turn, give rise to tax arbitrage. Narrowing this gap, however, impinges on another venerable historical institution, the institution of sovereignty and sovereign inequality

The explosive growth of the US ABCP market between 2004 and 2007: an integrated empirical analysis

In common with other sectors of the shadow banking system, the US asset backed commercial paper market experienced unusually rapid growth between 2004 and 2007. Several studies of this development have focussed attention on investor pressures on the banks to expand the rate of ABCP issuance over this period. By contrast, other studies have focussed attention on the incentives that motivated the banks to expand ABCP supply. This paper provides an integrated empirical analysis of the demand-pull and supply-push factors that drove the pre-crisis growth of the ABCP market. In addition to showing the joint importance of these two factors, our results also show the extent to which the European shadow bank conduits dominated US ABCP issuance over the 2004 to 2007 period and the extent to which these conduits increasingly resorted to long term securities as collateral for ABCP programs