Systemic risks of credit default swaps. Financial weapons of mass destruction. Created by Sal Khan.

This 3-minute video lesson provides an introduction to credit default swaps and why they can be dangerous. [Core Finance playlist: Lesson 25 of 184]

Imagine that you are a bank and a main part of your daily business is to lend money. Unfortunately, lending money is a risky business – there is no 100% guarantee that you will get all your money back. If the borrower defaults, you will face losses in your portfolio. Or, in a bit less extreme scenario, if the credit quality of your counterparty deteriorates according to some rating system, the loan will become more risky. These are typical situations in which credit risk manifests itself.

According to the Basel Accord, a global regulation framework for financial institutions, credit risk is one of the three fundamental risks a bank or any other regulated financial institution has to face when operating in the markets (the two other risks being market risk and operational risk). As the 2008 financial crisis has shown us, a correct understanding of credit risk and the ability to manage it are fundamental in today’s world.

This course offers you an introduction to credit risk modelling and hedging. We will approach credit risk from the point of view of banks, but most of the tools and models we will overview can be beneficial at the corporate level as well.

At the end of the course, you will be able to understand and correctly use the basic tools of credit risk management, both from a theoretical and, most of all, a practical point of view. This will be a quite unconventional course. For each methodology, we will analyse its strengths as well as its weaknesses. We will do this in a rigorous way, but also with fun: there is no need to be boring.

 U.S. History is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of most introductory courses. The text provides a balanced approach to U.S. history, considering the people, events, and ideas that have shaped the United States from both the top down (politics, economics, diplomacy) and bottom up (eyewitness accounts, lived experience). U.S. History covers key forces that form the American experience, with particular attention to issues of race, class, and gender.Senior Contributing AuthorsP. Scott Corbett, Ventura CollegeVolker Janssen, California State University, FullertonJohn M. Lund, Keene State CollegeTodd Pfannestiel, Clarion UniversityPaul Vickery, Oral Roberts UniversitySylvie Waskiewicz

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Discuss the Bush administration’s economic theories and tax policies, and their effects on the American economyExplain how the federal government attempted to improve the American public education systemDescribe the federal government’s response to Hurricane KatrinaIdentify the causes of the Great Recession of 2008 and its effect on the average citizen