IBSS-Ex: Comprehending and Regulating Financial Crises

本项目的重点是如何理解金融危机，如何构建和部署金融模型，以及监管机构如何尝试解决金融危机。它关系到人类行为的基本维度：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，他们在现有政治和体制结构的背景下做出哪些决定？许多研究人员试图查明2008年金融危机的原因，以表明这场金融危机与之前的金融危机有何相似之处，或者确定危机后监管金融机构的最佳方法。这些尝试令人不满意，因为它们仅限于在一个学科领域内进行调查。我们的多学科方法涉及自然科学、社会科学和人文科学，并利用尽可能广泛的专业知识和方法，包括正式建模、实验研究、统计分析、案例研究、历史分析和人种学研究。我们关注两个核心问题。首先，我们考察了金融和危机模型：a)用于表示收益的概率分布类别的正式分析；b)对金融模型的信心、对其假设的认识以及大众和专业媒体上的危机概念的内容分析；以及c)评估对模型的信心如何影响投资行为的实验研究。其次，我们通过进行以下操作来分析监管机构对危机的反应：a)对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进行人种学和回溯性人种学研究；以及b)美国证券交易委员会的案例研究？S对1987年和2007/08年金融危机的反应放在美国金融监管的更广泛的经济史的背景下。金融可能是促进共同利益和国家利益的最强大的工具之一。正如最近几年所表明的那样，当金融模式和监管模式出现问题时，后果是严重的，社会各界都会承担。这项研究将有助于有关金融监管的知识和政策辩论。该项目将产生几篇学术文章和一本面向多学科受众的学术专著。该项目还将对一些研究生和本科生进行社会学、人类学、经济学和科学哲学方面的培训，并使他们接触到广泛的跨学科合作，以帮助克服在对危机的担忧和监管对策这一关键问题上的“孤岛思维”倾向。研究人员有经验将他们的学术工作推向更广泛的受众，并将利用他们过去使用的论坛和平台，在学术受众之外宣传他们的发现。该项目由美国国家科学基金会的跨学科行为和社会科学研究(IBSS)支持。

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).