1. What are the major business activities of investment banks?
2. Why do commercial banks want to get into investment banking?
3. Explain why underwriting new securities issues can be a risky business.
4. What is a private placement? How does it differ from a deal underwritten by an investment bank?
5. In what ways do some security dealers and stockbrokers serve as financial intermediaries?
6. What is venture capital? What types of companies seek venture capital?
7. What are the differences between M1, M2, and MZM? Why are there different measures of money?
Please answer one of the following questions.
1. What is the essential difference between the Keynesian and the Monetarist view of how money affects the economy?
2. What are technical factors? How do they affect the implementation of monetary policy?
3. According to the law of large numbers, as the number of insureds increases, risk is reduced. However, as an insurance company writes more policies, it exposes itself to the potential for greater insured losses, which is riskier. Explain this apparent contradiction.
4. To what extent do the risk of unemployment and the risk of war satisfy the requirements of private insurance risks?
5. What are the primary sources of insurance regulation? What are the areas that are regulated?
6. Why are annuities and life insurance often described as opposites? If they are opposites, why do insurance companies marketing life insurance also commonly market life annuities?
7. Differentiate between defined benefit and defined contribution pension plans. Who bears the investment risk under each of these alternatives? Which type of plan is easier to fund and manage?