School News

NYU Stern and The Clearing House Launch Gallatin Lecture Series on Banking

Gallatin Lecture Series
NYU Stern Professor and Nobel Laureate Robert Engle delivered the inaugural “Gallatin Lecture Series on Banking,” the first in a series of four lectures jointly hosted by NYU Stern and The Clearing House.  Professor Engle’s presentation, entitled “Prospects for Financial Stability,” was given on February 6 at The Clearing House’s new Manhattan headquarters. Professor Engle was introduced by Paul Saltzman, President of The Clearing House Association, and NYU Stern Finance Professor Matthew Richardson, director of the Salomon Center for the Study of Financial Institutions.

Professor Engle was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2003 for his work on time-series analysis.  He heads The Volatility Institute, which hosts the Volatility Lab (V-LAB) website, where daily estimates of volatilities and correlations for more than 1,000 assets may be found.  These forecasts use both traditional and state-of-the-art statistical methods.  These computations are used in evaluating portfolio risk, asset allocation, derivative pricing and systemic risk measures now incorporated into the NYU Stern Systemic Risk Ranking.

Professor Engle drew on the work of the V-Lab for his remarks. Using a series of slides showing measures of systemic risk, Professor Engle explained the varying levels of systemic risk by country, and risk relative to GDP and market capitalization.  Under these measures, the Japan, the US and China were had the highest systemic risk; France, Greece, the UK and Switzerland had the highest risk relative to GDP, and Greece, Japan and France had the highest risk relative to their market capitalization.

He noted that it is difficult to test for risk on a forward-looking basis, but showed that the Systemic Risk Ranking results were consistent with what was seen during the 2008 financial crisis, and when applied to banks, provided a rapid and effective alternative to supervisory stress tests to determine strong and weak banks.

The Gallatin Lecture Series on Banking is inspired by Albert Gallatin (1761-1849).  Throughout his long and distinguished political career, Gallatin was intimately involved with the financial and banking issues of his time. As Secretary of the Treasury, he proposed the establishment of a consortium of private banks, which idea ultimately became The Clearing House.  Following his political career, he settled in New York and was one of the founders of New York University.

NYU Stern and The Clearing House are presenting The Gallatin Lecture Series on Banking, a quarterly speaker series that will bring distinguished and influential thinkers in the field of banking and bank regulation to the banking community and the broader public. Future lectures are scheduled for May 4, September 10 and October 23 and will be held at NYU Stern’s Washington Square campus.