About the original authors

Anthony Saunders is the John M. Schiff Professor of Finance and Chair of the Department of Finance at the Stern School of Business at New York University. Professor Saunders received his PHD from the London School of Economics, and has taught both undergraduate-and graduate-level courses at NYU since 1978. Throughout his academic career, his teaching and research have specialised in financial institutions and international banking. He has served as a visiting professor all over the world, including INSEAD, the Stockholm School of Economics, and the University of Melbourne. He is currently on the Executive Committee of the Salomon Center for the Study of Financial Institutions at New York University.

Professor Saunders holds positions on the Board of Academic Consultants of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, as well as the Council of Research Advisors for the Federal National Mortgage Association. In addition, Dr Saunders has acted as a visiting scholar at the Comptroller of the Currency and at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. He also held a visiting position in the research department of the International Monetary Fund. He is an editor of the Journal of Banking and Finance and the Journal of Financial Markets, Instruments and Institutions, as well as the associate editor of eight other journals, including Financial Management and the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking. His research has been published in all the major money and banking and finance journals and in several books. In addition, he has authored or coauthored several professional books, the most recent of which is Credit Risk Measurement: New Approaches to Value at Risk and Other Paradigms 2e, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 2002.

Marcia Millon Cornett is the Rehn Professor of Business at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. She received her BS degree in economics from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, and her MBA and PHD degrees in finance from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Dr Cornett has written and published several articles in the areas of bank performance, bank regulation, and corporate finance. Articles authored by Dr Cornett have appeared in such academic journals as the Journal of Finance, The Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, The Journal of Financial Economics, Financial Management, and The Journal of Banking and Finance. She served as an associate editor of Financial Management and is currently an associate editor for The Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Financial Services Research, FMA Online, The Multinational Finance Journal and The Review of Financial Economics. Dr Cornett is currently a member of the Board of Directors, the Executive Committee, and the Finance Committee of the SIU Credit Union. She is a member of the Financial Management Association, the American Finance Association, and the Western Finance Association.

About the local authors

Helen Lange is an AssociateProfessor of finance and Directorof the MBA Program at U21Globalin Singapore. She is on leave fromMacquarie University GraduateSchool of Management in Sydney,where she also holds a position ofAssociate Professor. Helen receivedher PHD from Macquarie University.Helen has taught at undergraduatelevel at UNSW (from 1989), and atgraduate level at both University ofSydney (from 1996) and MacquarieUniversity (from 1994), specialisingin courses relating to finance andfinancial institutions, and in particular,risk management. She also holdsa position of visiting professor to theMultimedia University, Cyberjaya,Malaysia, and was a visiting fellow atthe Stern School of Business at NewYork University in 1997. Prior to hercareer at UNSW, Helen had fifteenyears of extensive experience in thebanking and finance industry. She is afellow of FINSIA, and a foundationDirector of the Australian Chapter ofthe Turnaround ManagementAssociation. Helen has published inthe area of corporate finance, securitisation,and banking, and consults inthe areas of risk management.

John A Anderson holds a PHD infinance from RMIT University.He is currently Senior Lecturer inFinance and Banking at The BritishUniversity in Dubai, and is alsoan Honorary Fellow of theSir John Cass Business School,City University London. Prior tojoining academia, John was a floortrader and local member of theSydney Futures Exchange, andworked as a treasury dealer ininterest rate products andderivatives. He also served as futuresspecialist with ASIC. He has taughtin the banking and finance fields inAustralia at universities includingQueensland University ofTechnology, RMIT University, andMacquarie Graduate School ofManagement. He has consultedextensively to numerous majorAustralian and internationalfinancial institutions, as well asholding international board positionsin the funds management sector.John’s research covers a variety offinancial markets and computationalfinance fields appearing ininternational journals, conferences,and books, including citations inprofessional financial texts.

Dianne Thomson is a Senior Lecturein finance at Deakin University inMelbourne. Di received her BEc(Hons) from La Trobe Universityand has taught at bothundergraduate and graduate levelat Deakin University from 1988,specialising in courses relatingto macroeconomics, financialinstitution management andinternational banking and finance.Prior to her career in academia Dihad fifteen years of extensiveexperience in the health care sector.Her research interests include: theimpact of financial organisation andstructure on performance, financialinstitution regulation, corporategovernance, and corporate socialresponsibility in the finance sector.Articles written by Di have appearedin such academic journals as TheInternational Review of FinancialAnalysis, The Accounting, Businessand Finance History Journal andin Australian applied and policyjournals: The Australian Journal ofPublic Administration, and EconomicPapers and Agenda. Di is a memberof the Accounting and FinanceAssociation Australia and NewZealand.