Good Derivatives: A Story of Financial and Environmental Innovation

Thursday 8 November 2012; 16:00 at SSEE, Hayes House, 75 George Street, Oxford, OX1 2BQ.

Summary: Dr. Richard Sandor gave a first-hand account of his experiences as an inventor of new markets in interest rates, air and water. Sandor provided unique insights into the process of creating these new financial products. Covering his successes and failures, including an attempt to start an all-electronic exchange in the late sixties, his talk covered the efforts to build support for these new inventions in places like Chicago, New York, Paris and how their impact is unfolding today in Mumbai, Shanghai and Beijing.

The talk  also covered events leading up to the creation of the Chicago Climate Exchange and its affiliated exchanges (European Climate Exchange, Chicago Climate Futures Exchange and Tianjin Climate Exchange, in China). The European Climate Exchange quickly became the benchmark exchange for carbon prices and transformed London into the world centre of carbon finance. The lessons learned in the creation of these markets can play a critical role in effectively addressing global climate change and other pressing environmental issues. The slides for the presentation can be viewed here

Speaker Biography: Richard L. Sandor is chairman and chief executive officer of Environmental Financial Products LLC, which specializes in inventing, designing, and developing new financial markets. Sandor also serves as a distinguished professor of environmental finance at the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University and a lecturer in law at the University of Chicago Law School. He has previously taught at the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business, and the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. Sandor was honored by the City of Chicago for his contribution to the creation of financial futures. In 2007, he was honored as one of TIME Magazine’s “Heroes of the Environment.” He holds a B.A. from the City University of New York, Brooklyn College, and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.