center events: 10th annual conference

For the 12th year, the Center offered the popular financial markets short course on January 12–15, 2022. Created in response to the 2008 global financial crisis, this unique short course has been an important component of the curriculum for MPA and MPP students at the School of Public and International Affairs. Designed for policy practitioners and generalists, the intensive three-day short course gives students practical knowledge and framework to understand how financial markets function: why they sometimes function well and why they sometimes fail.

The course was run virtually for a second year and enrolled 71 students. We had 39 MPA/MPP students from SPIA and 13 graduate students from other departments. Last year, we opened the course to all Princeton graduate students. This year, we expanded further afield to include students and staff from the African School of Economics (ASE) and the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO). As part of our new international collaboration with these institutions, twenty external participants zoomed in from Dakar, Abidjan, and Cotonou, bringing in important international and emerging market perspectives to the class discussion.

This year’s iteration of the course also brought in some new voices. Rosalind Wiggins of the Yale Financial Stability Program provided a comprehensive overview of the causes of the great financial crisis and the tradeoffs inherent in the policy response. Carolyn Wilkins, formerly deputy governor of the Bank of Canada and a visiting scholar at Princeton, explained how central banks and national governments are thinking about digital currencies and the policy ramifications. In addition to the foundational material, the course included a session on financial accounting led by Visiting Professor Donal Byard of Baruch College as well as presentations by leading experts on municipal finance, China’s financial markets, and private equity.

y Introduction to Financial Accounting: Donal Byard,

Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College y Framework for Understanding Financial Markets: Lance

Eckel and Chris Tidmore, Finance IQ y The Great Financial Crisis: Rosalind Wiggins, Yale

School of Management y Distributed Finance and Cryptocurrencies: Carolyn

Wilkins, Princeton University y Financial Regulation: Dianne Dobbeck, Federal

Reserve Bank of New York; Pierre Gentin, McKinsey &

Company, Inc.; Charles Yi, Federal Housing Finance

Agency y China’s Financial Markets: Jean-Christophe de Swaan,

Princeton University and Cornwall Capital y Municipal Bond Markets: RJ Gallo, Head, Municipal

Bond Investment Group, Federated Hermes y Private Equity: David Rubenstein, Carlyle Group

Date: January 12–15, 2022

Audience: Princeton Graduate Students, ASE Graduate Students, BCEAO staff analysts

Topics: Accounting principles, financial markets, regulations and policy

Financial support: Noah Gottdiener ’78

More info: https://jrc.princeton.edu/teaching/fmpp

To craft public policy, you must understand the mechanics of how a given field operates to enact well-targeted and effective policies. Courses like this provide the detailed knowledge policy practitioners need, and financial markets are key to several aspects of policy. I am focused on international relations and international capital flows and financial markets are an important aspect of the field that I now better understand.

Would recommend this course to others: y Absolutely................40% y Yes, with enthusiasm....... 16% y Yes ......................44%

Likely to take similar courses in future? y Extremely likely............46% y Somewhat likely...........38% y Somewhat unlikely......... 15%

Quantity/quality of subject matter learned: y An amazing amount .......29% y A lot.....................64% y Moderate amount .......... 7%

I came into the course with a background in financial regulation and a general understanding of markets. While some of the material was review for me, I think this course did a good job of filling in some of the gaps in my knowledge and connecting the dots between markets and policy. In particular, I thought many of the speakers, both from government and industry, provided many useful insights about current policy topics and how to understand markets and their regulation. Very useful to understand the various aspects of finance markets and capitalism and its relationship with financial and economic booms and busts, and how public policy professionals should deal with them.