The Paul Woolley Centre was established at the London School of Economics in September 2007. Research at the Centre aims at understanding the workings of capital markets and the social efficiency of allocations these markets achieve. The research departs from the Arrow-Debreu view of frictionless markets, and emphasizes the role of financial institutions (e.g. investment banks, mutual, hedge, and pension funds) in influencing prices and allocations.
The main themes are:
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Contracts and organizational structure: What contracts should govern the agency relationship between investors and fund managers? How do contracts influence managers' investment policies? What determines the organizational structure of the fund-management industry?
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Market frictions and asset prices: How do frictions such as asymmetric information, market-entry costs, or agency, impact the informational efficiency of prices? What are the implications for market liquidity and for phenomena such as excess volatility or contagion?
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Allocative efficiency and the macro-economy: Frictions can generate allocative inefficiencies, such as imperfect risksharing and misallocation of capital in the macroeconomy. How important are these inefficiencies and how can they be measured?
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Policy implications: Can regulatory policies mitigate market inefficiencies? For example, can changes in contracts between investors and managers, or the introduction of new assets, generate Pareto-improvements?
The Paul Woolley Centre is holding a conference each year based on these broad themes as well as related research questions. The goal is to bring together researchers working on such questions, disseminate their research, and stimulate the development of new ideas. Both empirical and theoretical papers are welcome. The programme of the centre's first conference can be found here|.
The centre's second conference will take place on Thursday-Friday 28-29 May 2009. Professor Andrei Shleifer from Harvard University will give a keynote address.
Expenses: Travel (economy class round-trip) and accommodation expenses will be covered for presenters and discussants.
Submission: Please email a copy of your paper to cmdcentre.fmg@lse.ac.uk| cc fmg.vayanos@lse.ac.uk|
Programme Committee: Bruno Biais (University of Toulouse), Amil Dasgupta (London School of Economics), Denis Gromb (London Business School), Christopher Polk (London School of Economics), Dimitri Vayanos (London School of Economics), Paul Woolley (London School of Economics)
Deadline for submission of papers: 16 March 2009.
The authors of selected papers will be informed by the end of March.
Please note this call for papers is CLOSED