International Economics

<< N°123

  N°123  
Issue Q3 2010  
A Systemic Approach to Financial Regulation: a European Perspective  
Michel Aglietta
Laurence Scialom
 
The global financial crisis has pinpointed the relevance and the virulence of systemic risk in modern innovative finance. It is grounded in the propensity of credit markets to drift to extremes in close correlation with asset price spikes and slumps. In turn, such a propensity is nurtured by the heuristic behaviour of market participants under severe uncertainty. While plagued by disaster myopia, market participants spread systemic risk. Such adverse conditions have been magnified by financial innovations that have made finance predatory and capable of capturing regulators to annihilate prudential policies. Malfunctioning in finance is so deep and disorders are so widespread that sweeping reforms are the order of the day, if financial stability is viewed as a primary public concern. In this paper we argue that macro prudential policy should be the linchpin of relevant reforms. Being a top-down approach, it impinges both upon monetary policy and micro prudential policy. Abstract

   
Financial crisis ; Macro-prudential policy ; Financial regulation ; Keywords
G01 ; G28 ; E58 ; JEL classification
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