abcd a POLICY INSIGHT No.68 December 2013 The aftermath of the crisis: Regulation, supervision and the role of central banks Ignazio Visco Governor, Bank of Italy Introduction trillion at the end of 2006, 700 at the end of 2007 and still 700 trillion in December 2012. The financial crisis has brought to the fore a number of issues. It has been severe and Financial deepening, by allowing greater widespread, and has affected many economies diversification of risk and making finance in different and long-lasting ways. Maintaining accessible to larger numbers of countries and firms, financial stability has once again become a major can be instrumental to broadening economic concern of policymakers and central banks are development. But there is a risk that finance turns heavily involved in this endeavour. A clear need into an end in itself, with consequences that can has emerged for a substantial overhaul in financial be more damaging as the system becomes more regulation and supervision, also considering that interconnected and the potential for externalities the financial system of tomorrow will most likely increases. be rather different from the one that has developed over the last two decades. Scepticism has grown At the same time, the interaction between about the role of finance in the economic system, monetary policy and financial stability becomes and especially its apparent separation from, if not more relevant as heightened financial complexity conflict with, the real economy. We should take amplifies the widespread non-linearities in the stock of what has gone wrong, and in so doing dynamics of financial and economic variables, and reflect on the way forward – as it is already taking the consequences of interconnections between the shape – as well as on how to better link our theories financial and the real side of the economy. In these to real world developments. conditions, the risk of systemic crises increases. In the decade before the crisis both the size of the The correct conduct of financial business requires financial system and its role and pervasiveness in the competence and good faith on the part of economy increased dramatically. The process has intermediaries, as well as appropriate regulatory, only slowed down with the crisis. In the Eurozone, supervisory and policy regimes. The fact that the overall amount of financial resources collected fragilities in the financial system were not properly by the private sector (bank credit, bonds issued and timely identified, and that their potential domestically and stock market capitalisation) rose consequences for macroeconomic and price from 140% of GDP in 1996 to 210% in 2007, to stability were largely underestimated reflects further increase to 240% in 2012. Broadly similar inadequacies in regulation and supervision, as well patterns are found for the US, where the ratio rose as in the analytical framework for monetary policy. from 230% in 1996 to 360% in 2007 and then declined to 310% in 2012, and for the UK, where The financial crisis has provided two main lessons the ratio increased from 280% to 440% and then for policymakers: remained stable. The total outstanding notional amount of over-the-counter (OTC) and exchange- • First, complexity is not a justification for a light- traded derivatives has risen from less than 100 touch approach to regulation and supervision, trillion US dollars at the end of 1998 to around 500 quite the contrary. This Policy Insight is based on a lecture at the Harvard Kennedy • Second, financial stability is a precondition for School on 16 October 2013. Previous versions of this text were price stability. used for lectures at the Imperial College in London and at the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome in March 2013. I wish to thank Two implications, then, have followed suit: for useful discussions and help Fabrizio Balassone, Paolo Del Giovane, Alessio De Vincenzo and Giuseppe Grande. CEPR POLICY INSIGHT No. 68 CEPR POLICY INSIGHT No. To download this and other Policy Insights, visit www.cepr.org DECEMBER 2013 2 • On the one hand, a deep and far-reaching in a context of exceptionally high remunerations. reform in financial regulation and supervision The integrity of financial intermediaries’ codes of was needed (including tighter international conduct has been called into question under many cooperation). dimensions, such as honesty, the ability to manage financial risks and the commitment to take care of • On the other hand, central banks had to rethink the interests of their clients. their role and the tools of their trade, specifically concerning the relationship between monetary In the first place, public attention was caught by and macroprudential policies. cases of investment fraud, in which Ponzi schemes or other types of malpractice and malfeasance led many people to lose their savings. Feelings were “Good” finance as a force for good exacerbated by the generous severance packages paid to top managers after distressed financial Finance has long been viewed as a morally dubious institutions were rescued with taxpayer money. activity. My appeal to authority on this matter is Dubious practices were found in key junctures of a reference to a lecture delivered by Amartya Sen the financial systems, such as credit ratings and more than twenty years ago as the first Paolo Baffi interbank reference rates, not to mention the Lecture on Money and Finance at the Bank of Italy allegations of financial institutions’ involvement (Sen 1991). Sen wondered: “How is it possible in activities related to money laundering and other that an activity that is so useful has been viewed fraudulent practices. as being morally so dubious?” He recalled a series of historical episodes: Jesus driving the money Most importantly, the crisis has shown that lenders out of the temple, Solon cancelling debts market participants were not capable of mastering and prohibiting many types of lending in ancient the inherent complexity of the system that they Greece, Aristotle describing interest as an unnatural themselves had contributed to develop over the and unjustified breeding of money from money course of the last two decades. Favoured by the breakthroughs in information technology and Superimposed on this “structural” mistrust, one telecommunications, the securitisation of banks’ can detect cyclical patterns in the public’s attitude assets expanded considerably, together with the towards finance, affected by the conditions of supply of so-called structured financial instruments financial systems and shifts in the political mood (ABSs, CDOs, etc.). The traditional model of credit about state intervention in the economy. Until intermediation gave way – especially, but not only, the 1970s it was taken for granted that market in the US – to a system in which loans granted were failures required the presence and response of a rapidly transformed into other financial products regulator to avoid suboptimal results. Then came having these loans as collateral and sold on the the great inflation of the 1970s, combined with market – the so-called originate-to-distribute (OTD) high unemployment, and the emphasis shifted to model. To the inherent difficulty of evaluating government failures. Governments, central banks the quality of loans, these developments added and other regulators were blamed for failing to the problem of fully understanding the role of prevent these developments. This eventually led to structured finance products. an ideological swing – a push to reduce the extent of state intervention. The failures of the “regulated Structured finance products and the OTD economy,” the pace of technological advance and intermediation model can facilitate risk the rapid expansion of international trade after the management. The granting of mortgages to end of the Cold War fuelled a protracted process of households is favoured by the possibility of financial deregulation that was halted only by the managing the related interest-rate risk; the financial crisis that broke out in 2007. The latter internationalisation of firms depends crucially on triggered a move toward re-regulation – or better the possibility of hedging foreign exchange risk; regulation – that is still under way. The pendulum and the provision of retirement saving products at keeps swinging and will certainly continue to do low cost over very long time horizons benefits from so. the ability to mitigate the impact of fluctuations in security prices. With the OTD model, credit The global financial crisis, with its huge costs risk is not concentrated in the banks’ books, for the whole society, has caused a further deep but is potentially dispersed among a multitude erosion of the trust in financial institutions. of investors. By making bank loans tradable, it Witness to this are the widespread protests against reduces their illiquidity premium thus decreasing the financial industry, from the Occupy Wall Street their cost. movement to the “Indignados” in Spain and their counterparts in other European countries. Anger However, we now understand that structured has been fuelled not only by the discovery of finance and OTD intermediation, coupled with wrongdoings and perverse incentives, but also by a lack of transparency, favoured excessive risk perceived lack of action against those responsible, taking and opportunistic behaviour. Transactions CEPR POLICY INSIGHT No. 68 CEPR POLICY INSIGHT No. To download this and other Policy Insights, visit www.cepr.org DECEMBER 2013 3 often took place through scarcely regulated enormously from this financial instrument. More financial intermediaries characterised by high recently, consider the development of “micro- leverage and risk exposure, whose valuation (in finance” in the 1970s, an innovation that has which a crucial role was played by rating agencies enhanced financial inclusion, helping poor without any particular control by regulatory borrowers to smooth their income and cope with authorities or information providers) was carried illness or other temporary shocks. And recall out by means of statistical models and often on the role of the “venture capital” industry in the the basis of incomplete and insufficient data.