Arnob L. Alam

American University Department of Economics

4400 Massachusetts Ave NW

Washington, DC 20016

I am an applied financial economist and econometrician focusing on financial market regulation and the use of info-metrics (information theory) to solving empirical problems in a social science setting. I currently work as an Operations Research Analyst (ORSA) for the Army where I help optimize the Army National Guard’s force structure and stationing processes.

In addition to working as a short-term consultant for the World Bank, and as a researcher for the Care Work and the Economy (CWE-GAM) project, I was a research intern for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), where I looked at the non-deliverable forwards (NDF) markets. I also worked as a research associate at Drake University (under the supervision of Prof. Heath Henderson), where I examined the structure of risk-sharing networks.

My research interests include financial market regulation, info-metrics and complex systems (especially network science).

selected publications

The Impact of Mandatory Central Clearing on Interest Rate Swaps Pricing

Arnob Alam

2025

Job Market Paper

Abs PDF

Mandatory central clearing was the keystone derivatives market reform in the Dodd-Frank era. This paper examines the impact of the mandate on interest rate swaps pricing. Using data from Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation’s Swaps Data Repository around the time of the central clearing mandate implementation and using Canadian-dollar denominated contracts, which were not subject to the clearing mandate as a comparison group, a 13-14 bps increase in swap premia is observed for US-dollar denominated contracts. A similar increase of 7-8 bps is observed comparing contracts denominated in British Pounds (subject to clearing mandate) against contracts denominated in Swiss Francs (not subject to the clearing mandate). Since the central clearing mandate was implemented in phases, the cleared volume and impact on pricing can be examined per phase. Phase 1 of the mandate resulted in a 16 percentage point increase in cleared volumes and 5 bps increase in prices; phase 2 resulted in 12 percentage point increase in cleared volumes and an additional 3 bps increase in prices; although there was no increase in cleared volume in phase 3 prices increased 16 bps. The results are robust to additional controls for contract characteristics and alternative functional forms of the regression model.