Macroprudential regulation is a set of economic and policy tools that aim to mitigate risk in the financial and banking systems. It was largely developed in response to the financial crisis of 2007-08, turning central banks into de facto financial policemen. Taming the Cycles of Finance traces the post-crisis rise of macroprudential regulation and argues that, despite its original aims, it typically supports finance in times of crisis but fails to curb it in times of booms. Investigating how different macroprudential frameworks developed in the UK, the USA and the Eurozone, the book explains how central bank economists went about building early warning systems to identify fragilities in the financial system. It then shows how administrative and political constraints limited the effects of this shift, as central banks were wary of intervening in a discretionary manner and policymakers were opposed to measures to limit credit growth.
This book is intended for anyone with an interest in trading or investing, whether they are amateurs or professionals. Its framework is applicable to all markets, whether they are bonds, money market, commodities, currencies, stocks, or property.
Banks were allowed to enter securities markets and become universal banks during two periods in the past century - the 1920s and the late 1990s. Both times the ensuing unsustainable booms led to destructive busts - the Great Depression of the early 1930s and the Global Financial Crisis of2007-09. Both times, universal banks made high-risk loans and packaged them into securities that were sold as safe investments to poorly-informed investors. Both times, governments were forced to arrange costly bailouts.Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 in response to the Great Depression. The Act broke up universal banks and established a decentralized financial system composed of three separate and independent sectors: banking, securities, and insurance. That system was stable and successful for overfour decades until the big-bank lobby persuaded regulators to open loopholes in Glass-Steagall during the 1980s and convinced Congress to repeal it in 1999.In Taming the Megabanks, Arthur Wilmarth, Jr. argues that we must separate banks from securities markets again to avoid another devastating financial crisis and ensure that our financial system serves Main Street business firms and consumers instead of Wall Street bankers and speculators. Wilmarth'scomprehensive and detailed analysis of the roles played by universal banks in the two worst financial catastrophes of the past century demonstrates that a new Glass-Steagall Act would make our financial system much more stable and less likely to produce boom-and-bust cycles. And giant universalbanks would no longer dominate our financial system or receive enormous subsidies.Congress did not adopt a new Glass-Steagall Act after the Global Financial Crisis. Instead, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act. Dodd-Frank's highly technical reforms tried to make banks safer but left the dangerous universal banking system in place. Universal banks continue to pose unacceptablerisks to financial stability and economic and social welfare. They exert far too much influence over our political and regulatory systems because of their immense size and their undeniable "too-big-to-fail" status.Taming the Megabanks forcefully makes the case for a a new Glass-Steagall Act to break up universal banks. A more decentralized and competitive system of independent banks and securities firms would not only provide better service to Main Street businesses and ordinary consumers but also bringstability to a volatile financial system.
How did we end up in a world where social programs are routinely cut in the name of market discipline and fiscal austerity, yet large banks get bailed out whenever they get into trouble? In The Bailout State, Martijn Konings exposes the inner workings of this sprawling infrastructure of government guarantees. Backstopping financial markets and securing banks’ balance sheets, this contemporary Leviathan manages the inflationary pressures that its generosity produces by tightening the financial screws on the rest of the population. To a large extent, the bailout state was built by progressives seeking to buttress the institutions of the early postwar period. The resulting tide of capital gains fostered an asset-centered politics that experienced its heyday in the nineties. But ever since the financial crisis of 2007-08, promises of inclusive economic growth have looked increasingly thin. A colossus locked in place, the bailout state disburses its benefits to a rapidly shrinking group of property owners. Against the backdrop of a ferocious post-pandemic turn to anti-inflationary policy, the only remaining way to exit the logic of the bailout, Konings argues, is to challenge the monetary drivers at the heart of capitalist society.
The volatility of capital flows to emerging markets continues to pose challenges to policymakers. In this paper, we propose a new framework to answer critical policy questions: What policies and policy frameworks are most effective in dampening sharp capital flow movements in response to global shocks? What are the near- versus medium-term trade-offs of different policies? We tackle these questions using a quantile regression framework to predict the entire future probability distribution of capital flows to emerging markets, based on current domestic structural characteristics, policies, and global financial conditions. This new approach allows policymakers to quantify capital flows risks and evaluate policy tools to mitigate them, thus building the foundation of a risk management framework for capital flows.
This paper assesses empirically the key drivers of private capital flows to a large sample of emerging market economies in the last decade. It analyzes the effect of the global financial cycle, measured by the VIX, on capital flows and investigates the role of fundamentals and country characteristics in mitigating or amplifying its effect. Using interaction models, we find the effect of the VIX to be non-linear. For low levels of the VIX, capital flows are driven by fundamental factors. During periods of stress, the VIX becomes the dominant driver of capital flows while other determinants, with the exception of interest rate differentials, lose statistical significance. Our results also suggest that the effect of global financial conditions on gross private capital flows increases with the host country’s level of financial sector development. Finally, our results imply that countries cannot fully insulate themselves from global financial shocks, unless creating a fragmented global financial system.
This paper assesses whether and how financial development triggers the occurrence of banking crises. It builds on a database that includes financial development as well as financial access, depth and efficiency for almost 100 countries. Through estimation of a dynamic logit panel model, it appears that financial development, from an institutional dimension and to a lesser extent from a market dimension, triggers financial instability within a one- to two-year horizon. Additionally, whereas financial access is destabilizing for advanced countries, it is stabilizing for emerging and low income ones. Both results have important implications for macroprudential policies and financial regulations.
Aid has become a tangle of donors and recipients, so unwieldy that it is in danger of collapse. This ground-breaking book presents fresh thinking that transcends the 'more' verses 'less' arguments. Drawing on complexity theory it shows how aid could be transformed into a truly dynamic form of global cooperation fit for the twenty-first century.
