Changes in Institutions and Capital Markets Following the Financial Crisis
Beginning even before the full impact of the 2007-2009 (and continuing) financial crisis was appreciated, governments, financial regulators, and the financial institutions themselves have implemented major changes in the practices of those institutions. These changes continue and will have a dramatic impact on the ways that the finance industry operates. These changes include (but are certainly not limited to):
    Nationalizing or forcing the merger of financial institutions

For your paper you are to select one of these changes and analyze it. Select an issue (or part of an issue) which is possible to you to sufficiently grasp and analyze. For example, the Dodd Frank Act is much too broad, at 1000+ pages, to tackle, so taking one aspect of the Act, such as the so-called Volker Rule, or the limitation on credit ratings might be more reasonable to tackle. Your selection can extend beyond this list, to examine other actions and can include those in markets outside the US, subject to the approval of the instructor.
Papers should be between 12 and 15 pages double spaced, and 15 should be considered a reasonable maximum. Papers MUST include a bibliography of sources cited. Any direct or indirect quoting or paraphrasing of other material MUST be footnoted. While facts and information will underlie the discussion, the key to this assignment is your analysis and conclusions regarding the topic. The analysis should at a minimum include:
    A description of the problem or issue it was intended to address
    Who, and to what degree, is affected by the action? In a positive or negative way? For example, restrictions on lending behavior affects the lenders themselves, the potential borrowers, and potentially the economy as a whole.
    What has been the result of that action? Some may not be fully implemented but actions may already have been taken to address them, for example, increases in required bank capital under Basel III will not be required for several years but banks have already taken action to increase their capital).

Students MUST submit to their instructor the subject of their papers and a brief (i.e. one or two paragraph) description of the topic by the end of the second week of classes AT THE LATEST.
The paper is to be prepared using the APA writing style and guideline for references format. This is for references at the end of the paper and the citation of author and dates in the body of the paper. The department uses the APA style as it lends itself well to both reading the paper and understanding references without being cumbersome as some of the other styles are (such as Chicago or MLA). You can down load the student style guide from the American Psychological Association (http://www.apastyle.org/elecref.html) web site.