In an effort to provide some broad framing for the sessions to follow, I thought I would try to do three things in my opening remarks. First, I will briefly discuss the welfare economics of fire sales.
That is, I will try to make clear when a forced sale of an asset is not just an event that leads to prices being driven below long-run fundamental values, but also one that involves a market failure, or externality, of the sort that might justify a regulatory response.