The Political Economy of Financial Regulatory Reform: Ten Years On (Part 1)

Abstract

The past decade has produced a wave of regulatory and supervisory reforms aimed at increasing financial stability. This has included: the development of new recovery and resolution regimes; bans on proprietary trading and the ‘ringfencing’ of retail activities; strengthened microprudential supervision; tougher regulation of the non-banking sector; and efforts aimed at improving banking standards and culture. Yet opinion is divided over the impact of these changes, and their ability to address new challenges. The aim of this panel is to analyse, assess and explain the past ten years of financial regulatory reform efforts. It has four objectives: (1) to develop new methods of evaluating the effectiveness of regulatory reform initiatives in restoring stability, managing risk, and/or reshaping behaviour; (2) to analyse and explain patterns of change and continuity, and convergence and divergence, in financial regulatory developments across time and place; (3) to explore the changing multi-level dynamics of financial regulation at the national, EU and international levels; and (4) to investigate wider trends related to the future of financial regulation, the role of finance in the wider economy (the so-called ‘finance curse’), and the economic and regulatory challenges posed by the rise of economic populism, symbolised by the election of President Trump and the Brexit referendum.