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Researching the Assemblage Durham E-Theses Becoming (Un)Stable: Twenty Years of Financial Stability Governance at the Bank of England MORRIS, JOHN,HOGAN How to cite: MORRIS, JOHN,HOGAN (2016) Becoming (Un)Stable: Twenty Years of Financial Stability Governance at the Bank of England, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11414/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Becoming (Un)Stable: Twenty Years of Financial Stability Governance at the Bank of England This thesis is the first critical social scientific study of a central bank’s financial stability agenda, in this case the Bank of England. The study is broadly situated in a trajectory of research into geographies of money and finance that is concerned with global financial processes, opening up the black box of institutional practices and the interaction between discourse and the economy. More specifically, the thesis contributes a Deleuzian cultural economy and three key concepts as a means for interrogating the financial stability practices of the central bank in question: assemblage, performativity and (in)stability. The methodology of the thesis has involved creating a financial stability archive from some 2000 documents, texts and videos publically available on the Bank of England website. Texts within this archive were read in a consistent and rigorous way, drawing on a grounded theory approach that was ‘somewhere between abduction and deduction’ (Crang 2003: 132). And, finally, the empirical contribution of the thesis is concerned with financial stability techniques and develops across five chapters concerned, respectively, with press conferences, credit derivatives, Value-at Risk, stress testing and confidence. John Hogan Morris 10-4-2015 Becoming (Un)stable: Twenty years of Financial Stability Governance at the Bank of England John Hogan Morris This thesis is submitted for the qualification of Doctor of Philosophy. The research was conducted in the Department of Geography at Durham University. Thesis submitted to Durham University in October 2015. 1 Table of Contents List of Chapters: Page: Chapter 1. Introduction 5 Chapter 2. A Deleuzian Cultural Economy of Central Banking and Financial Stability 32 Chapter 3. Researching the Assemblage 66 Chapter 4. Financial Stability Reports and Press Conference Performances 81 Chapter 5. Credit Derivatives as Debt –Risk Assemblages 108 Chapter 6. Value-at-Risk: Calculation, Precision and Accuracy 127 Chapter 7. Stress Testing: Assembling Possibility, Hypothesis and (Peri)performativity 147 Chapter 8. Assembling Money, Enunciation and Confidence 168 Chapter 9. Concluding Reflections on Central Banking and Financial Stability 197 Bibliography 212 List of Tables: Page: Table 1: Final Procedure for Textual Analysis 76 Table 2: Procedure for Video Analysis 77 List of Illustrations: Page: Figure 1: The Assemblage 57 Figure 2: Coming to the Archive 69 Figure 3: Early Financial Stability Reports 85 Figure 4: Later Financial Stability Reports 86 Figure 5: Systemic Risk Survey 87 Figure 6: Visualization of the RAMSI Framework 91 Figure 7: Establishing Authority in Press Conferences 94 Figure 8: How CDOs Work 110 Figure 9: How CDSs Work 111 Figure 10: Jorion Article (a) 138 Figure 11: Jorion Article (b) 139 Figure 12: Jorion Article (c) 140 Figure 13: Stress Test Assumptions 154 2 Statement of Copyright The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the author’s prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. Acknowledgements Very many people have helped me to complete this project. I would like to thank Paul Langley and Ben Anderson for supervision of the highest standard. It is a testament to both that I have always enjoyed our intellectually stimulating and extremely humorous discussions in supervisions so much. Paul and Ben have always given me full ownership of the project and have encouraged me to pursue avenues that I think are important. I greatly value Ben’s rigorous reading of many iterations of chapters and his advice on a heady mix of social theory and philosophy. Ben’s enthusiasm, encouragement and support for a project on finance has been invaluable and much appreciated. I cannot thank Paul enough for the way in which he has supported and mentored me in my writing, helping me to get my academic career up and running, and for insisting that I read Thrift and Dewsbury on performativity. I consider myself very lucky to be part of a very supportive and talented PhD community in Durham Geography. I would like to thank Andrew Telford and Esther Hitchen for their help in reading iterations of Chapter Four and providing both encouragement and insightful comments both in the classroom and the pub. I moved to Durham from Bristol and have thoroughly enjoyed my time in the North East. I have drawn immensely from the friendship and support of Jack Williams, Naomi Maynard, Jess Benjamin, Philip Garnett, Ingrid Medby, Hannah Bickerdike, Sophie Tindale, Gillian Carnegie, Siobhan Whadcoat, Will Christiansen, Mariana Santos, Rosie Fewings, Adam Trueman and Christine Hamilton. I am also extremely appreciative of invitations to gain exposure for work in progress at a number of academic events. This provided outstanding opportunities for feedback, questions and provocations. I would like to thank Joyce Goggin, Thomas Bay, James Brassett, Simon Lilley, Nina Boy, Nat O’Grady, Pippa Thornton, Phoebe Moore and Karen Lai Peak Yue for inviting me to a series of conferences and workshops across the UK and Europe. I have found exchanges with Duncan Wigan, James Brassett, Alexis Stenfors, Amin Samman, Sarah Hall and Dimitri Papadopoulous to have been incredibly useful in the development of my work. Finally, this project would not have been possible without the love, encouragement and support of my parents. 3 Dedication For David and Hilda Morris who are a constant source of strength, support and determination. 4 Chapter One-Introduction 1.1 Why Financial Stability? ‘The Governor of the Bank of England is a man who is universally respected and trusted…No man has done more towards the rehabilitation of the financial life of Europe…His work in this respect will probably never be fully known or acknowledged, but it has been inestimable’ (Philip Snowden M.P., in the House of Commons, 14th May, 1928 cf. Saw 1944: 109). ‘In my time at the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) at the Bank, I was surprised by the lack of interest in issues relating to financial markets. Indeed there seemed to be a deliberate policy to run down resources in the financial stability wing’ (Sushil Wadhwani, 1999 cf. Conaghan 2012: 41). The two statements above both touch on the overarching problematic of this thesis- the lack of existing research into the Bank of England’s work in relation to finance and the financial sector. However, that said, both quotes suggest a different explanation for the lacuna of financial stability. For Philip Snowden, the telling and vital contribution made by the Bank of England’s Governor Sir Montagu Norman may ‘never be fully known or acknowledged’ because much of the financial stability work of the Bank of England under Norman was carried out behind closed doors and in secrecy. And, because this quote reduces the Bank of England to the agency of the governor, this glosses over the networked and assembled nature of the Bank of England’s work, as well as the contemporary shift to transparency (Holmes 2014). Moving forward over 50 years, and Sushil Wadhwani, a member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), is speaking during a period of much greater transparency, but at this stage, not much of the Bank’s energies are being focused on the financial sector in ways that impacted policy (Turner Review 2009: 84). This second quote is symptomatic of the way in which the Bank of England no longer had the same responsibilities for financial stability as it did 50 years previously. At this time the Financial Services Authority (FSA) had the main supervisory role and engrained thinking about how stability was the preserve of markets functioning efficiently. Founded as a private institution in 1694, the Bank of England’s key principal at the time was to “promote the public good and benefit of our people” by managing the public debt of the government. This role of ‘national banker’ was clearly and squarely financial. However, it seems 5 that, analogous to the trends identified above, when an account is given of what central banks do, the explanation underplays the financial stability work undertaken at many of these public institutions. For example, for a widely used Introduction to Global Financial Markets, central banks are described as being ‘a distinct entity to a commercial bank and providing a number of regulatory, supervisory and governmental functions’ (Valdez and Molyneux 2010:20, 55). Similarly, a former First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund sketches out another functional explanation when he says that central banks serve as ‘bankers for the government by managing the national debt’ and managing both exchange rates and foreign reserves (Fischer 2005:170).
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