CHAPTER 1:
THE INVESTMENT ENVIRONMENT
PROBLEM SETS:
1. While it is ultimately true that real assets determine the material well-being of an economy,
financial innovation in the form of bundling and unbundling securities creates opportunities
for investors to form more efficient portfolios. Both institutional and individual investors
can benefit when financial engineering creates new products that allow them to manage
their portfolios of financial assets more efficiently. Bundling and unbundling create
financial products with new properties and sensitivities to various sources of risk that
allows investors to reduce volatility by hedging particular sources of risk more efficiently.
2. Securitization requires access to a large number of potential investors. To attract these
investors, the capital market needs:
1. A safe system of business laws and low probability of confiscatory
taxation/regulation;
2. A well-developed investment banking industry;
3. A well-developed system of brokerage and financial transactions; and
4. A well-developed media, particularly financial reporting.
These characteristics are found in (indeed make for) a well-developed financial market.
3. Securitization leads to disintermediation; that is, securitization provides a means for
market participants to bypass intermediaries. For example, mortgage-backed securities
channel funds to the housing market without requiring that banks or thrift institutions
make loans from their own portfolios. Securitization works well and can benefit many,
but only if the market for these securities is highly liquid. As securitization progresses,
however, and financial intermediaries lose opportunities, they must increase other
revenue-generating activities such as providing short-term liquidity to consumers and
small business and financial services.
4. The existence of well-developed capital markets and the liquid trading of financial assets
make it easy for large firms to raise the capital needed to finance their investments in real
assets. If Suncor Energy, for example, could not issue stocks or bonds to the general
public, it would have a far more difficult time raising capital. Contraction of the supply of
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