Year In Review: The Office of Financial Research

This past year, the Office of Financial Research​ (OFR or Office) has advanced substantive work to achieve its mission, building on its progress since being established by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The OFR, led by Director Richard Berner, is ramping up its services to the Financial Stability Oversight Council (Council), Council member agencies, and the public by working to improve the quality and scope of financial data available to policymakers and to conduct and foster sophisticated analysis of the financial system.

Last week, the OFR submitted its 2013 Annual Report to Congress, fulfilling a requirement to annually assess the state of the United States financial system and analyze threats to U.S. financial stability. The report describes a prototype Financial Stability Monitor, a comprehensive new tool developed by the OFR for tracking threats and the interplay among them.

Last week, the OFR submitted its 2013 Annual Report to Congress, fulfilling a requirement to annually assess the state of the United States financial system and analyze threats to U.S. financial stability. The report describes a prototype Financial Stability Monitor, a comprehensive new tool developed by the OFR for tracking threats and the interplay among them.

The Office also released a report this year on asset management activities, as requested by the Council. The Council decided to study the activities of asset management firms to better inform its analysis of whether – and how – to consider such firms for enhanced prudential standards and supervision under section 113 of the Dodd-Frank Act. In developing the report, the OFR staff reviewed existing research, analyzed industry data, interviewed market participants, and consulted extensively with Council member agencies.

The OFR also continued its three years of leadership in the global initiative to establish the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI). OFR Chief Counsel Matthew Reed represents Treasury as Chair of the Regulatory Oversight Committee of the Global LEI System, which launched in January. In July, Reed noted in a Treasury Notes blog post that “the efforts to produce an LEI system are coming to fruition,” explaining how the need for a LEI system has long been recognized, but its construction is now well under way.

This year, the OFR also established a research grant program with the National Science Foundation and expanded its Working Paper Series, releasing a total of nine working papers on topics related to financial stability. To read them please follow the links below:

• Common Ground: The Need for a Universal Mortgage Loan Identifier
  (12/5/2013)
  Matthew McCormick, Lynn Calahan

• Cryptography and the Economics of Supervisory Information: Balancing Transparency and Confidentiality
  (9/4/2013)
  Mark Flood, Jonathan Katz, Stephen Ong, Adam Smith

• Stress Tests to Promote Financial Stability: Assessing Progress and Looking to the Future
  (7/18/2013)
  Rick Bookstaber, Jill Cetina, Greg Feldberg, Mark Flood, Paul Glasserman

• How Likely is Contagion in Financial Networks?
  (6/21/2013)
  Paul Glasserman, H. Peyton Young

• The History of Cyclical Macroprudential Policy in the United States
  (5/15/2013)
  Douglas J. Elliott, Greg Feldberg, Andreas Lehnert

• Stress Scenario Selection by Empirical Likelihood
  (4/9/2013)
  Paul Glasserman, Chulmin Kang, Wanmo Kang

• Hedge Fund Contagion and Risk‐adjusted Returns: A Markov‐switching Dynamic Factor Approach
  (3/13/2013)
  Ozgur (Ozzy) Akay, Zeynep Senyuz, Emre Yoldas

• Systematic Scenario Selection
  (2/7/2013) Mark D. Flood, George G. Korenko
  source code (zipped file in Matlab format)​

• CoCos, Bail-In, and Tail Risk (1/23/2013)
  (1/23/2013) Nan Chen, Paul Glasserman, Behzad Nouri, Markus Pelger

​Visit this page for links to more posts from the management team.

Barbara Shycoff is the Chief of External Affairs at the Office of Financial Research.