Organisation

Centre for International Finance and Regulation

Owning Institution:

University of New South Wales

Macquarie University

University of Technology Sydney

Government of Australia

Government of New South Wales

University of Sydney

University of Melbourne

Australian National University

The Centre for International Finance and Regulation (CIFR) was a Centre of Excellence operating from 2011 to 2016 to address fundamental issues affecting the Australian financial industry. CIFR’s mission was to promote financial sector vibrancy, resilience and integrity, supporting Australia as a regional financial centre through leading research and education on systemic risk, market and regulatory performance and financial market developments. CIFR funded 71 research projects, involving well over 100 researchers from domestic and international universities.

For Australia’s financial industry, CIFR provided a strategic link between academia, policy-makers, regulators and other industry participants. Now closed, the Centre's output of 148 papers are all available at this publisher page.

Working paper

Twin Peaks: A Theoretical Analysis

31 Jul 2015

Andy Schmulow

Centre for International Finance and Regulation

This paper provides a theoretical analysis of the twin peaks method of financial system regulation, with particular reference to the Australian iteration of the model. This includes a description of how twin peaks functions, its historical development, and its strengths and weaknesses. An analysis is also provided of an important bifurcation in the Australian model...

Working paper

Delegation, trust and defaulting in retirement savings: Perspectives from plan executives and members

31 Jul 2015

Centre for International Finance and Regulation

We combine survey data from retirement plan members with information from interviews with plan executives to get both perspectives on who accepts the default plan and default investment option and why. We use a natural experiment in default construction where a new regulatory framework required providers to have stipulated default settings in place by early...

Working paper

Financial Services Misconduct and the Corporations Act 2001 - paper 2

31 Jul 2015

Helen Bird,

George Gilligan

Centre for International Finance and Regulation

The paper follows Working Paper’s scoping of penalties under ASIC administered legislation by discussing enforcement under the Corporations Act through the lens of a study of court-based enforcement by ASIC of financial services misconduct.

Working paper

Measuring Financial Integration: the network approach

30 Jun 2015

Jenny Corbett,

Ying Xu

Centre for International Finance and Regulation

While deeper financial integration is often considered conducive to the efficient allocation of resources and risk sharing, an increasingly important policy concern is whether it brings greater vulnerability to shocks. To address the latter concern, this paper uses a different approach to measuring financial integration, highlighting interconnectedness in a network of financial flows. Applying an...

Working paper

Do franking credits matter? Exploring the financial implications of dividend imputation

30 Jun 2015

Andrew Ainsworth,

Graham Partington,

Geoffrey J. Warren

Centre for International Finance and Regulation

We examine the implications of the imputation system for stock prices and returns, cost of capital, project evaluation, capital structure, payout policy and investor portfolios. We also discuss potential impacts if the imputation system was dismantled or adjusted, perhaps in conjunction with a reduction in the corporate tax rate. A key theme is that the...