see ann huff stevens and jessamyn schaller ( 2011 ), “ short - run effects of parental job loss on children ’ s academic achievement, ” economics of education review, vol. 30 ( april ), pp. 289 – 99 ; ariel kalil and patrick wightman ( 2011 ), “ parental job loss and children ’ s educational attainment in black and white middle - class families, ” social science quarterly, vol. 92 ( march ), pp. 57 – 78 ; and philip oreopoulos, marianne page, and ann huff stevens ( 2008 ), “ the intergenerational effects of worker displacement, ” journal of labor economics, vol. 26 ( july ), pp. 455 – 83. for a discussion of this effect, see daniel aaronson, bhashkar mazumder, and shani schechter ( 2010 ), “ what is behind the rise in long - term unemployment? ” federal reserve bank of chicago, economic perspectives, vol. 34 ( 2 ), pp. 28 – 51. bis central bankers ’ speeches however, although structural shifts are no doubt important in the longer term, my reading of the research is that, at most, a modest portion of the recent sharp increase in long - term unemployment is due to persistent structural factors. 7 consider, for example, rates of job finding by those unemployed for varying amounts of time ( figure 13 ). unsurprisingly, the rate at which the long - term unemployed find work is lower than that of those who have been unemployed for only a short time ; on average over the period from 1994 to 2007, a bit more than one - third of those already unemployed for one to four weeks found employment within the next month. in contrast, over that same period, only about one - sixth of those already unemployed for more than 27 weeks managed to find a job within a month. if the recent increase in long - term unemployment were being driven by structural factors rather than, say, the severity of the recession, then the job - finding rates of the long - term unemployed should have fallen sharply relative to those out of work for only a few weeks. but that ’ s not what we ’ re seeing. rather, as figure 13 shows, the job finding rates of the more recently unemployed and the long - term unemployed all fell over the recession in roughly the same proportion, and they remain low. 8 this pattern is consistent with cyclical factors accounting for the bulk

new tools with which to manage financial risk. for example, securitization helps a firm manage the risk of a concentrated exposure by transferring some of that exposure outside the firm. by pooling assets and issuing marketable securities, firms obtain liquidity and reduce funding costs. of course, moving assets off the balance sheet and into special purpose entities, with the attendant creation of servicing rights and high risk residual interests retained by firms, generates its own risks and reduces transparency unless the firm takes additional steps to enhance disclosure. several types of securitization have grown rapidly over the past decade. one of the fastest growing has been asset - backed commercial paper, which soared from only $ 16 billion outstanding at the end of 1989 to about $ 690 billion as of year - end 2003. commercial mortgage securitizations have also proliferated noticeably since the early 1990s. the dollar amount of outstanding securities backed by commercial and multifamily mortgages has risen from $ 36 billion at the end of 1989 to just under $ 450 billion as of this past september. in addition, commercial banks and finance companies have moved business loans off their books through the development of collateralized debt obligations. securitized business loans amounted to $ 100 billion in the third quarter of 2003, up from a relatively miniscule $ 2 billion in 1989. firms also use derivatives to manage their risk exposures to price fluctuations in currency, commodity, energy, and interest rate markets. more recently, firms have used credit derivatives, a relatively new type of derivative that allows them to purchase protection against the risk of loss from the default of a given entity. by purchasing such protection, financial and nonfinancial firms alike can reduce their exposures to particular borrowers or counterparties. credit derivatives also allow financial firms to achieve a more diversified credit portfolio by acquiring credit exposure to borrowers with which they do not have a lending relationship. for example, european insurance companies reportedly have used credit derivatives to acquire exposure to european corporations that, because they rely primarily on bank lending, have little publicly traded debt outstanding. the improvements in technology, the quick pace of financial innovation, and the evolving riskmanagement techniques almost ensure that businesses will increasingly use almost limitless configurations of products and services and sophisticated financial structures. accordingly, outsiders will have ever more difficulty understanding the risk positions of many large, complex organizations. these developments represent significant challenges to standard setters and to firms. for market discipline to be effective, accounting standards must evolve to accurately