Corruption and Insider Trading: Evidence from Credit and Housing Markets

Abstract

[evdate 2016-03-10] IAS distinguished lecture. Title from opening screen.

Abstract: In this lecture, the speaker will discuss how regulators can detect corruption and insider trading behavior. Corruption costs the world over 1 trillion dollars annually. Most people agree it is value destroying. So, if we can try to minimize the role of corruption it would be a worthy goal. The speaker will cover three cases from around the world. In the first case, he will look at how banks influence bureaucrats by providing them higher lines of credit and then let them default and reinstate their account. In return the bureaucrats give the banks cheap source of deposits. In another example, he will also discuss how bureaucrats use inside information to benefit in their housing transactions at the cost of the general public. Finally, in a third example, he will discuss how banks give loans to firms in the districts of politicians who held influential portfolios.

Prof Sumit Agarwal received his MA and PhD in Economics at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee at 1995 and 1999. He joined the Bank of America in 2004 and was a senior vice president and credit risk management executive in the Small Business Risk Solutions Group. He was then appointed the financial economist in the research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in 2006 and joined the National University of Singapore in 2012. He is currently the Vice-Dean of Research and the Low Tuck Kwong Professor at the School of Business and a Professor in the departments of Economics, Finance and Real Estate at the National University of Singapore.

Prof Agarwal’s research interests include issues relating to financial institutions, household finance, behavioral finance, international finance, real estate markets and capital markets.

Prof Agarwal received numerous awards including the J Walter Elliot Award for Excellence in Macroeconomics (1995), Terker Family Prizes in Investment Research Award by Wharton School of Business (2009) and the TIAA-CREF Paul A. Samuelson Award (2011).

Duration: 91 min.