IBSS-Ex: Comprehending and Regulating Financial Crises

本项目侧重于如何理解金融危机，如何构建和部署金融模型，以及监管机构如何试图解决金融危机。它与人类行为的基本维度有关：市场参与者、专家和监管者如何理解金融市场？他们如何理解危机，因此，在现有的政治和制度结构的背景下，他们会做出什么样的决定？许多研究人员试图找出2008年金融危机的原因，展示这次金融危机与之前的金融危机有何相似之处，或者找出危机后监管金融机构的最佳方法。这些尝试是不令人满意的，因为它们仅限于一个学科领域的调查。我们的多学科方法涉及自然科学、社会科学和人文科学，并尽可能广泛地利用专业知识和方法，包括正式建模、实验研究、统计分析、案例研究、历史分析和民族志研究。我们关注两个核心问题。首先，我们通过以下方式来检验金融和危机模型：a)对用于表示收益的概率分布类别进行形式化分析；B)对大众和专业媒体对金融模型的信心、对其假设的认识以及危机概念的内容分析；c)评估模型信心如何影响投资行为的实验研究。其次，我们通过以下方式分析对危机的监管反应：a)纽约联邦储备银行和位于加利福尼亚州奥兰治县的联邦监管机构的监管民族志和回顾性民族志；b)美国证券交易委员会的案例研究？在美国金融监管的更广泛的经济史背景下，美国对1987年和2007/08年崩盘的反应。金融可能是促进共同利益和国家利益的最有力工具之一。近年来的事实表明，当金融模式和监管模式出错时，后果是严重的，而且是由社会各界共同承担的。这项研究将有助于对金融监管的知识和政策辩论。该项目将为多学科读者编写几篇学术文章和一本学术专著。该项目还将培训一些社会学、人类学、经济学和科学哲学方面的研究生和本科生，并使他们接触到广泛的跨学科合作，这有助于克服在对危机的理解和监管反应这一关键问题上的“筒仓思维”倾向。研究人员有将他们的学术工作带给更广泛受众的经验，他们将利用过去使用的论坛和平台向学术受众之外推广他们的发现。本项目由美国国家科学基金会行为与社会科学跨学科研究（IBSS）资助。

This project focuses on how financial crisis is understood, how financial models are constructed and deployed, and how regulators attempt to solve financial crisis. It bears on fundamental dimensions of human behavior: How do market actors, experts, and regulators understand financial markets? How do they comprehend crises, and, consequently, what decisions do they make in the context of existing political and institutional structures? Many researchers have tried to pinpoint the causes of the financial crisis of 2008, to show how this financial crisis resembled those that came before, or to identify the optimal method for regulating financial institutions in wake of the crisis. Those attempts are dissatisfying because they are limited to inquiry within one disciplinary field. Our multidisciplinary approach engages natural and social sciences and the humanities, and draws on the broadest possible base of expertise and methods, including formal modeling, experimental research, statistical analysis, case studies, historical analysis, and ethnographic research. We focus on two central issues. First, we examine models of finance and crisis by conducting: a) formal analysis of classes of probability distributions used to represent returns; b) content analysis of confidence in financial models, awareness of their assumptions, and notions of crisis in popular and professional press; and c) experimental research evaluating how confidence in models influences investment behavior. Second, we analyze regulatory responses to crisis by conducting: a) an ethnography and retrospective ethnography of regulation at the Federal Reserve Bank of NY and at federal regulatory bodies located in Orange County, California; and b) a case study of the Securities and Exchange Commission?s response to the 1987 and 2007/08 crashes in the context of broader economic history of financial regulation in the U.S. Finance is potentially one of the most powerful tools for advancing the common good and national interest. As the recent years have shown, when financial models and regulatory models go awry, the consequences are severe and born by all sectors of society. This research will contribute both to knowledge and to policy debates about financial regulation. The project will produce several scholarly articles and a scholarly monograph intended for a multidisciplinary audience. The project will also result in training of a number of graduate and undergraduate students in sociology, anthropology, economics and philosophy of science, and expose them to a broad interdisciplinary collaboration that helps to overcome the tendency of "silo thinking" in relation to this crucial issue of the apprehension of and regulatory responses to crisis. The researchers have experience in bringing their scholarly work to broader audiences and will use the forums and platforms they have used in the past to promote their findings beyond academic audiences. This project is supported through the NSF Interdisciplinary Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (IBSS).