Understanding Financial Architecture: Legal and Political Frameworks and Economic Efficiency

Research Training Network

The objective of this Network, known as UFAnet, is to improve the understanding of the interaction between legal frameworks and financial arrangements, and the effects that these have on economic efficiency and growth. The Network has launched a number of research projects expanding and deepening the characterisation of legal rules and financial arrangements, in particular in regard to ownership and control, and creditor protection. The participating researchers seek to make use of the theoretical tools in financial economics and recently available data to shed light on the complex interplay between law and finance.

A second objective of UFAnet is to link research on law and finance with political economy. Politics has played an important role in shaping legal and financial systems, and these systems have given rise to significant stakeholders with influence over the political process. Understanding this interaction is essential to any attempt to reform European financial architecture.

The participating researchers from SITE, Stockholm School of Economics, Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros (CEMFI), Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), Center for Financial Studies (CFS), ECARES, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Institut D'Economie Industrielle, Université des Sciences Sociales de Toulouse (IDEI), University of Oxford, Princeton University, Università degli Studi di Salerno and the Yale Law School (see list for details) will apply this approach in three areas where law and finance intersect: corporate governance, bankruptcy law, and market organisation and efficiency.

Network Co-ordination is undertaken by the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics and East European Economies (SITE).

UFAnet is closely related to the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI).

Further information about the network can be found on CEPR's website.