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

The use of active asset allocation by superannuation funds

30 Jun 2015

David Carruthers

Centre for International Finance and Regulation

This research project examines the extent to which Australian superannuation funds have varied their asset allocations, both over time and relative to each other. The report details developments in asset allocation for superannuation funds over the last 20 years, with two key trends identified:  The rise in exposure to alternative assets; and  The...

Working paper

Long-Term Investing as an Agency Problem

30 Jun 2015

David Neal,

Geoffrey J. Warren

Centre for International Finance and Regulation

The agency problems that pervade delegated investment management are exacerbated when investing for the long term, where the payoff is distant and often highly uncertain. These conditions compound the difficulty of aligning and monitoring the agents (managers) responsible for making investment decisions, particularly across multi-layered investment organizations. Problems arise from differences in investment horizons; the...

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

An analysis of penalties under ASIC administered legislation: scoping the issues

31 May 2015

Centre for International Finance and Regulation

This working paper is the first published output of an eighteen month (December 2014 – June 2016) research project conducted by staff at the Melbourne Law School that examines enforcement and penalties regimes under legislation administered by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). During 2015 and early 2016 the project will conduct a review...

Working paper

Dividend imputation or low company tax?

24 May 2015

Geoffrey Kingston

Centre for International Finance and Regulation

Recent OECD data offer limited support for the proposition that our company tax rate could be cut substantially with little or no loss of tax revenue. Treasury‐type analysis suggests otherwise: our headline rate could be cut to 20 per cent if abolishing dividend imputation were used to finance a cut in the headline rate. But...