Lucia SATRAGNO
Research Fellow
2 March 2020 to 1 March 2021

Dr Satragno’s research at CBFL deals with the key role that reserve asset accumulation is playing in the stability of the global, regional and domestic monetary and financial systems. In this context she develops a legal case study about the increasing growth and importance of sovereign wealth funds with a special focus on the ASEAN Region and Singapore in particular.
 
Before starting with her post-doctoral research at CBFL, Lucia worked as a doctoral fellow in monetary and financial law at the World Trade Institute, University of Bern (2015-2020) and as a research fellow at the same institute (2012-2014). Lucia also worked as a legal counsel in banking and finance law for a major law firm (2004-2009) and a corporate bank (2009-2010) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Lucia holds a law degree with honours from the University of Buenos Aires (2003), an LLM degree with distinction, awarded by Queen Mary University of London (2010-2011) and has recently obtained her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in international monetary and financial law (magna cum laude), from the University of Bern (May 2020).

Research Areas

International Monetary Law

In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2009 (GFC) excessive reserve assets accumulation together with the reliance on few reserve currencies was indicated as one of the weaknesses of the international monetary system. However, for some countries (mostly Emerging Market Economies) the accumulation of reserve assets was utilised as a unilateral measure of precautionary nature to secure monetary independence in times of crisis. Additionally, reserve assets are considered at the forefront of the resources of the so-called Global Financial Safety Net (GFSN) together with central bank swap and repo lines, funding by regional financing arrangements (RFAs) and international financial institutions. It is this dichotomy of the reserves assets being considered part of the problems that led to the GFC and part of the solutions to prevent and mitigate economic and financial crises on which Lucia wants to develop her research project at the CBFL. In this context, she analyses in particular the special case of sovereign wealth funds - the different types of these government-owned investment funds. Even though sovereign wealth funds are not part of the GFSN, they are domestic sources of reserves and play an important role in macroeconomic management and global financial stability.