One of the main unresolved challenges of the recent financial crisis is how society should deal with global banks that are “too big to fail.” The collapse of Lehman Brothers vividly demonstrated the costs of the failure of such an institution, with sweeping repercussions for the financial system and the broader economy. Yet, implicit public guarantees that would prevent such failures are equally costly, creating moral hazard in the form of increased risk taking and incentives for financial institutions to become larger and more complex. The research in this proposal will address this dilemma. From a methodological perspective, my research will advance the state of the art in financial intermediation theory by explicitly modeling the failure and resolution of global banks, emphasizing crucial elements that are absent from leading theories: the design of mechanisms that allow for an orderly resolution of struggling global financial institutions, the incentives of national authorities in the regulation and resolution of global banks, the role of the corporate and organizational structure of global banks, as well as their optimal size and scope. The proposed approach is interdisciplinary; it will generate novel insights by drawing on different subfields within economics (corporate finance theory, organizational economics) and aspects of bankruptcy law. Moreover, the research will take a holistic view that explicitly recognizes the two-way feedback between the rules that govern bank resolution and decisions on funding, investment, and size taken by banks prior to a potential resolution. Overall, the findings from this research will be directly relevant for regulators and policymakers. For example, they will inform currently debated legislation regarding the regulation and resolution of global banks, such as the Single Resolution Mechanism in the EU.

Course/Project title My ESRC project uses computational and quantitative methods to examine the antecedents of international terrorism discourse. By constructing a bipartite social network representation of United Nations General Debate speeches, consisting of states in one mode and the words or concepts they express in the other, I am able to statistically estimate the relative importance and significance of state attributes and structural patterns in producing state rhetoric and communicatory styles. Specifically, modelling this communication network with bootstrapped temporal exponential graph models (BTERGM) allows for the estimation of the likelihood that a state will utilize a particular word or concept given a number of other factors. Firstly, I quantify the likelihood that a state will use a particular word by its individual attributes, including the degree to which they participate in terrorism discourse and their engagement in global counter-terrorism efforts. Secondly, I quantify the importance of a state's social, economic, and discursive networks in driving their rhetoric. For instance, the models measure the independent effect of state trade and conflict relationships on the likelihood of a state expressing a given concept. This makes it possible to assert whether the use of a given concept or word by important trade partners or historical adversaries, respectively, make it more or less likely that a state also uses this rhetoric. Finally, the model assesses for homophily in state deliberation. This involves estimating the tendency for similar or dissimilar states to utilize identical concepts and rhetoric in their deliberation on terrorism. In particular, I estimate the effect that two states will utilize the same rhetoric given the relative similarity of their religious demographics, economic power, and political system. This quantitative analysis is guided by socially constructivist theories of international relations, theoretical frameworks from the Critical Terrorism Studies literature, and the Copenhagen School's Securitization theory. Each of these theoretical perspectives inform the particular hypotheses that this analysis seeks to evaluate and provide a broader understanding of international terrorism discourse within which the significance of the results can be understood. Additionally, qualitative interviews with diplomatic figures can reveal the subjective interpretations, emotions, and experiences of those empirically involved in terrorism discourse that would otherwise have to be inferred from the contents of state speeches. In concert, these quantitative, theoretical, and qualitative findings should shed light on the factors of historical and contemporary importance in shaping our understanding of 'terrorism' through state deliberation.