New Book Strikes at Heart of Global Financial Crisis

Credit derivatives – privately negotiated contracts for the creation and hedging of credit risks such as bankruptcy – are at the heart of the current global financial crisis. While credit derivatives have revolutionised the way in which banks manage the risks of their loans, credit derivatives have created concentrated, opaque pockets of risk that the global financial system is now struggling to contain.

A new book by Melbourne Law School’s Associate Professor Paul Ali and Greg Gregoriou, Professor of Finance, State University of New York examines the latest developments in credit derivatives. The Credit Derivatives Handbook (McGraw-Hill, New York) brings together the latest scholarly analysis of credit derivatives from leading law and finance researchers. Examined are the latest product innovations, the role of credit derivatives in corporate collapses, the use made of credit derivatives in structured finance and in investment portfolios, and new models for pricing credit derivatives. The Handbook is a companion volume to Francis, Frost and Whittaker’s The Handbook of Credit Derivatives published in 1999 by McGraw-Hill, one of the most important and influential books on finance over the last decade.

Dr Ali lectures in Corporations Law and the Law of Secured Finance at the Law School. He has also written extensively on structured finance and securitisation.

The Handbook is available in Australia from DA Books and McGills Bookstore, Melbourne.