Banking
Goodhart’s cry of despair
The doyen of monetary economists grasps what is at stake
Five years after the international banking system fell into the arms of the central banks and governments, there is still a paralysing uncertainty about the extent and cost of regulation, the viability of banking models and the monetary policy regime. More about financial regulation and banking models in future columns. Now let us look…
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What Osborne should have said
George Osborne has missed a chance to lead us out of The Money Trap.
George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, made an autumn statement in the House of Commons yesterday. This is what he should have said. Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, Successive governments have allowed the problems related to and in part caused by the operations of banks in this country to drag on. No solution is in…
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The New Bank of England
When Mark Carney talks of relaunching the Old Lady, this is no mere figure of speech.
A well-informed correspondent, who did not want to be identified, predicts a full “spring clean”: “ I’m inclined to think Carney’s denial of interest (in becoming Governor) was genuine rather than a negotiation tactic like Napoleon’s thrice refusal of the title of emperor. However the denial of interest may have been based on…
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Understanding markets and power leads to one conclusion Those who are familiar with his thinking report that he will be keen to emphasise that responsibility for managing risks lies with the firms themselves. So he will be big on reforming governance of financial institutions. He will insist that bank boards live up to their duty…
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The UK media have been gushing in their welcome. It is right to welcome central banking’s “rock star”. But not everybody has been carried away by the euphoria…you only have to scan the Canadian press today: Andrew Coyne at the Montreal Gazette That our banking system was not so badly mauled by the crisis as…
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Banks that go bust
Why the IMF is on the wrong track
One of the lessons of FinCR (financial crisis and recession) is clear. We have to get better at stress-testing. That is, we have to understand better than we did what circumstances can push banks over the edge into insolvency, and how regulators can spot weak banks in advance. Or so the story goes. The…
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Tectonic plates shift
The future of banking hangs in the balance
There is a short and a long-term way to view the debate on structural reforms in banking. Short term, the question is, will the EU’s Liikanen knock out the UK’s Vickers? Or will Vickers prevail? The recommendations are mirror images of each other, one ring-fencing so-called retail banking the other ring-fencing the investment banking bit….
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Towards the next crash
The next financial crisis can’t come fast enough.
The political tide is backing off the banks. Few politicians in Europe or the US are willing to support moves for more radical reform. They just want to get the banks lending again. In practice, that means pressing banks to accept the risk of big bad debts down the road…and so set the stage for…
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Did unethical conduct cause the crisis?
RP's Diary
Dropped in to the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) to hear a talk by Dr Elaine Sternberg (she is the author of “Just Business: Business Ethics in Action”, a research fellow of the Centre for Business and Professional Ethics at Leeds University and IEA’s corporate governance guru; not many philosophers have also been entrepeneurs…
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Come on guys!
RP's Diary
Hello! Back to the grindstone after the holidays. This Diary entry draws on evidence I submitted last week to the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. It examines the link between the failure of money and continuing economic weakness. How long will it take governments to realise that we will never get a lasting recovery without…
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