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The purpose of this study is to examine how managers in financial institutions satisfy themselves of the effectiveness of risk mitigation strategy and management control. It studies the co-opting of accounting tools within a single financial institution case study, examining the recursive and emergent characteristics of risk management practice.

Adopting a field study approach within the strategy-as-practice perspective, the paper provides insights into the role of actor perceptions of risk and accounting as a calculative practice in the adaptive enactment of risk strategy.

Results highlight the interactions between risk management strategy, management controls and actor interests at Lehman Brothers. The actions and reactions of risk management decision-makers such as Executive Committee and Board members are examined to better understand the role of accounting and leadership.

Results of this study may not be generalised beyond this single case study.

The paper emphasises that concern for the social relations and the performative interests of actors in a risk management network needs to be understood and considered in accounting research. It is argued that the market prices of tradable financial asset will continue to be opaque without these insights.

This study explores an under-researched topic in the accounting literature in examining how management controls are affected by and, in turn, affect risk strategising.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, with particular focus on its use of Repo 105 transactions.

The use of the Lehman's bankruptcy report produced in part by Anton R. Valukas was used as a basis to explain how Lehman maintained acceptable leverage ratios through the use of Repo 105 transactions to paint a better picture of its financial position than actually existed.

The study concludes that Lehman's accounting method choice disguised its real problems, perhaps long enough for bankruptcy to become the only option.

Lehman's bankruptcy becomes part of a growing history of business failures where accounting principles have become the focus. The failure of Lehman reminds us that financial reporting must remain transparent, allowing users to make informed decisions with confidence.

This bankruptcy provides a painful reminder that financial reporting must allow users to differentiate among investment alternatives, based on the relative, factual financial position of the investment. The credibility of our reporting model is at stake.

This article addresses important policy issues raised in the latest Lehman dispute that directly impact the over the counter derivatives market and market participants, specifically in regards to the history and purpose of the Bankruptcy Code’s “safe harbor” provisions for swap agreements.

By examining the background of, and arguments presented in, the ongoing adversary proceeding, Moore Macro Fund, LP v. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., and the related bankruptcy case, in re Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. the authors offer their interpretations of the scope and intent of the applicable safe harbor provisions concerning set-off rights in the context of terminating swap agreements.

Parties to ISDA agreements should carefully monitor this case, as the outcome could shape the enforceability of the Bankruptcy Code and the strategic analysis of counterparties following a counterparty’s or credit support provider’s bankruptcy.

Parties must also be cautious when assuming all contractual provisions in industry-standard master agreements will be enforceable. This case confirms that contractual provisions seeming to reflect the intent of the parties may still be called into question before a court.

Litigation analysis and practical advice on the ongoing changes to the physical, futures and derivatives markets from experienced derivatives/structured products and bankruptcy/commercial restructuring lawyers.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether and how “living wills” and public disclosure of such resolution plans contribute to market discipline and the effective resolution of too big and too complex to fail banks.

The disorderly collapse of Lehman Brothers is analyzed. Large, systemically important banks are now required to prepare resolution plans (living wills). In the USA, parts of the living wills must be disclosed to the public. The public component is analyzed with respect to contribution to market discipline and effective resolution of banks considered too big and complex to fail. In a statistical analysis of the publicly available section of living wills, this information is contrasted with legislative requirements.

The analysis of public disclosures of resolution plans shows that they are insufficient to facilitate market discipline and, in some instances, fail to enhance public understanding of the financial institution and its business. When coupled with the uncertainty over how an internationally active financial institution will be resolved, the paper concludes that these reforms will do little to reduce market expectations that some financial firms are simply too big or too complex to fail.

A very small data set and the necessity of cross-checking the authors' observations with all publicly available sources. The authors have also tried to infer a purpose for public disclosure of parts of resolution plans. The authorities are remarkably vague on the issue and so the authors have assumed they actually did have a specific intent that would strengthen the system.

The inference from the publicly available portion of living wills is that the authorities are a very long way from abolishing too-big-to-fail.

So far as the authors know, this is the first in-depth analysis of the information available in the public sections of living wills.

This paper aims to explain the importance of the international cooperation and coordination among supervisory authorities of different countries in event of banking crises. It also suggests that the harmonious relationship has to be attained in the adoption of ex ante financial regulatory measures and ex post compensation schemes. In other words, the paper highlights the linkage between ex ante preventive regulatory measures and ex post compensation schemes, on the one hand, and cooperation among national regulatory and supervisory authorities in globalized financial markets. Although the paper is relevant to most developed and emerging financial markets, it chooses Hong Kong as a context to examine this proposal. In the current literature, there are no similar approach linking these two paradigms and examining them in an integrated context.

The paper adopts a conceptual framework after the 2008 global financial crisis and takes Hong Kong, an international financial centre in which numerous branches or subsidiaries of foreign financial institutions locate, as an example to examine how the coordination with foreign supervisory authorities are being conducted and to analyse whether the present regulatory framework in Hong Kong is effective and sufficient against banking crises. Through the review of the literature, the important link between ex ante regulatory measures and ex post compensation schemes is found to be significant in adopting proper solutions.

Through analysing the Hong Kong financial regulators’ reports on the collapse of Lehman Brother, the paper finds out that even though there is some weakness in the cooperation and coordination between regulators after the 2008 financial crisis, Hong Kong is still in the progress of proposing bank special resolution regime. Although there has been some awareness on the issue of coordination between home and host states regulatory measures, there is still a lack of awareness of the connection between regulatory measures and compensation schemes.

Conflict of interests could hardly be prevented in the course of cooperation and coordination among home and host regulatory authorities, and the coordination of the important link between ex ante regulatory measures and ex post compensation scheme which involves legal and economic analyses is a challenging task.

The paper’s findings show that there are practical implications for the recent rapid development of special resolution regime for global systematically important financial institutions against future banking crises and for managing the balance between the adoption of financial supervisory laws and special resolution measures.

This paper suggests that the harmonious coordination between ex ante regulatory measures and ex post compensation schemes has to be achieved through international context to avoid the absurd situations. This conceptual integrated framework presented in the current paper is not touched upon by the existing literature. This important concept is valuable for future research, and it is significant to financial regulators, legislators and the government in adjusting policy against banking crises in both developed and developing countries.

This paper sets out to analyze the current global financial crisis that originated in the US subprime mortgage market through the lens of the Kindleberger‐Aliber‐Minsky (KAM) paradigm as set forth in Kindleberger and Aliber's Manias, Panics and Crashes, to first examine the bubble's origins in the displacement caused by the internet collapse, the subsequent US recession, and the aggressive lowering of US interest rates. It shows how these events, combined with other technological and regulatory factors, resulted in a US housing bubble fueled by the aggressive securitization of mortgages by many large financial institutions, a reduction in their credit standards, and a lack of regulatory oversight. In this way it assesses the prime players in the process in terms of motivation and performance.

The paper explores how the process peaked and began to unravel as cash flows at the base of the financial pyramid built through securitization slowed. Once the supporting cash flow came under pressure and was questioned, several major players went bankrupt or took tremendous losses. It became apparent that risk and innovation had been improperly balanced, a prime characteristic of the KAM paradigm. Indeed, greed, innovation, and technology had combined to substantially reduce credit quality and increase leverage, vastly expanding the likelihood of a liquidity crisis and a substantial drop in the value of asset‐backed securities.

The analysis then examines why this effect had significant global dimensions, unlike, for example, the Japanese real estate and stock market collapse or the US internet boom and bust. The analysis also shows how market reactions have been in line with what might be expected under the KAM paradigm. It also conforms with what Robert Shiller and Edward Gramlich anticipated and with normal bank behavior in a credit crisis.

The paper assesses the policy responses to the crisis and their likely success under a KAM paradigm analysis. The proposed remedies already include the aggressive fiscal and lender of last resort monetary responses typical of the KAM paradigm but regulatory measures too. Further, as KAM notes, almost all booms and crashes involve scandals and scams. So not surprisingly there has been growing recourse to the courts seeking criminal and civil remedies. Also typical of such a dramatic boom and bust, governments are examining regulatory and legislative actions to address the current difficult economic and credit situation and to make sure that similar things do not occur in the future. But politics and a US presidential election are driving significant differences in approach. Under these circumstances what can the lens of the KAM paradigm tell us about the actions taken or proposed and what is or is not likely to work?

This paper aims to, by drawing on two decades of field work on Wall Street, explore the recent evolution in the gendering of Wall Street, as well as the potential effects – including the reproduction of financiers’ power – of that evolution. The 2008 financial crisis was depicted in strikingly gendered terms – with many commentators articulating a divide between masculine, greedy, risk-taking behavior and feminine, conservative, risk-averse approaches for healing the crisis. For a time, academics, journalists and women on Wall Street appeared to be in agreement in identifying women’s feminine styles as uniquely suited to lead – even repair – the economic debacle.

The article is based on historical research, in-depth interviews and fieldwork with the first generation of Wall Street women from the 1970s up until 2013.

In this article, it is argued that the preoccupation in feminine styles of leadership in finance primarily reproduces the power of white global financial elites rather than changes the culture of Wall Street or breaks down existent structures of power and inequality.

The research focuses primarily on the ways American global financial elites maintain power, and does not examine the ways in which the power of other international elites working in finance is reproduced in a similar or different manner.

The findings of the article provide practical implications for understanding the gendering of financial policy making and how that gendering maintains or reproduces the economic system.

The paper provides an understanding of how the gendered rhertoric of the financial crisis maintains not only the economic power of global financial elites in finance but also their social and cultural power.

The paper is based on original, unique, historical ethnographic research on the first generation of women on Wall Street.

Catastrophe (CAT) events associated with natural catastrophes and man-made disasters cause profound impacts on the insurance industry. This research thus reviews the impact of CAT risk on the insurance industry and how traditional reinsurance and securitized risk-transfer instruments are used for managing CAT risk.

This research reviews the impact of CAT risk on the insurance industry and how traditional reinsurance and securitized risk-transfer instruments are used for managing CAT risk. Apart from many negative influences, CAT events can increase the net revenue of the insurance industry around CAT events and improve insurance demand over the post-CAT periods. The underwriting cycle of reinsurance causes inefficiencies in transferring CAT risks. Securitized risk-transfer instruments resolve some inefficiencies of the reinsurance market, but are subject to moral hazard, basis risk, credit risk, regulatory uncertainty, etc. The authors introduce some popular securitized solutions and use Merton's structural framework to demonstrate how to value these CAT-linked securities. The hybrid solutions by combining reinsurance with securitized CAT instruments are expected to offer promising applications for CAT risk management.

The authors introduce some popular securitized solutions and use Merton's structural framework to demonstrate how to value these CAT-linked securities. The hybrid solutions by combining reinsurance with securitized CAT instruments are expected to offer promising applications for CAT risk management.

This research reviews a broad array of impacts of CAT risks on the (re)insurance industry. CAT events challenge (re)insurance capacity and influence insurers' supply decisions and reconstruction costs in the aftermath of catastrophes. While losses from natural catastrophes are the primary threat to property–casualty insurers, the mortality risk posed by influenza pandemics is a leading CAT risk for life insurers. At the same time, natural catastrophes and man-made disasters cause distinct impacts on (re)insures. Man-made disasters can increase the correlation between insurance stocks and the overall market, and natural catastrophes reduce the above correlation. It should be noted that huge CAT losses can also improve (re)insurance demand during the postevent period and thus bring long-term effects to the (re)insurance industry.

To provide an overview of the new uniform definition of “branch office” and to discuss how that definition will influence broker‐dealer supervisory programs.

Discusses the new definition of “branch office”, describes new NASD and New York Stock Exchange supervisory control system requirements and supervisory requirements for branch offices and other locations, and suggests guidelines for developing a branch office or remote office supervisory program.

In the current regulatory environment, no broker‐dealer should overlook regular and rigorous attention to supervision of branch offices and other remote locations. And in light of the new definition of a branch office, each broker‐dealer must include in its review and analysis a close evaluation of how the broker‐dealer supervises every location where broker‐dealer personnel engage in activities on behalf of the broker‐dealer and must document that evaluation.

Important reference for broker‐dealers’ branch office supervisory programs that underscores the need to pay proper attention to remote locations.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse employees’ lying behaviour and its findings have important implication for the management and prevention strategies of lying in the workplace. Employee lying has caused both reputational and financial damage to employers, organisations and public authorities. This study adopts a psycho-cognitive perspective to examine the mechanism of lying reduction and the influence envy has on lying behaviour.

Incorporating social comparison phenomenon and cognate studies this study suggests that envy may restrain people from lying in the workplace. Specific hypotheses are developed and tested with 271 participants using dice game scenarios.

Research findings have found that people are likely to lie if lying brings them benefits. However, the findings also reveal that the envy aroused between two people may act as a psychological barrier to reduce the tendency to lie.

The research findings have provided an alternative perspective to the current prevailing view of envy as a negative emotion. Envy need not always be negative. Envy can provide an internal drive for people to work harder and enhance themselves but it can also act as a brake mechanism and self-regulator to reduce lying, and thereby has a potentially positive value.