Similarly to the 1930s, when a regulatory clampdown on banking activity was adopted to restore confidence in the US financial sector, the crisis that started in 2007 raised expectations of a profound overhaul of the financial system and its global interconnectedness, that is, the factors that were understood to be at the heart of the crisis. Public mobilisation against the banks, the pronouncements of key leaders and regulators, which did not shy away from comparing the post-crisis environment to the ‘Bretton Woods moment’ that materialised as a reaction to the 1930s, were all signs suggesting that a quick and substantial (re)regulation of the global financial sector was on the agenda and about to take place. However, this book offers a sober assessment of the way in which policy-makers exploited the window of opportunity provided by the crisis. Rather than a decisive intervention to fix the problems exposed by the crisis, the post-crisis regulatory reform process has proceeded quite slowly and by way of marginal adjustments. If the conventional wisdom holds that turning points, such as an external shock, usually bring major intellectual reassessment and policy changes, the cases in this book in fact show that the ‘external shock’ of the crisis has not led to such comprehensive overhaul. In what follows, we review the key findings that can be extrapolated from the empirical chapters assessing the extent to which they lend support to the theoretical propositions staked out in the Introduction. Subsequently, we move to speculate on the implications of the post-crisis reform process for global financial governance. In this section, we also engage with the observation according to which incrementalism is mainly instrumental and serves to preserve the status quo. Finally, we reflect on the other challenges for the regulatory reform agenda and suggest some themes for future research, especially in a comparative perspective.

Conclusions: Too little, too slow?

MOSCHELLA, Manuela;
2013-01-01

Abstract

Similarly to the 1930s, when a regulatory clampdown on banking activity was adopted to restore confidence in the US financial sector, the crisis that started in 2007 raised expectations of a profound overhaul of the financial system and its global interconnectedness, that is, the factors that were understood to be at the heart of the crisis. Public mobilisation against the banks, the pronouncements of key leaders and regulators, which did not shy away from comparing the post-crisis environment to the ‘Bretton Woods moment’ that materialised as a reaction to the 1930s, were all signs suggesting that a quick and substantial (re)regulation of the global financial sector was on the agenda and about to take place. However, this book offers a sober assessment of the way in which policy-makers exploited the window of opportunity provided by the crisis. Rather than a decisive intervention to fix the problems exposed by the crisis, the post-crisis regulatory reform process has proceeded quite slowly and by way of marginal adjustments. If the conventional wisdom holds that turning points, such as an external shock, usually bring major intellectual reassessment and policy changes, the cases in this book in fact show that the ‘external shock’ of the crisis has not led to such comprehensive overhaul. In what follows, we review the key findings that can be extrapolated from the empirical chapters assessing the extent to which they lend support to the theoretical propositions staked out in the Introduction. Subsequently, we move to speculate on the implications of the post-crisis reform process for global financial governance. In this section, we also engage with the observation according to which incrementalism is mainly instrumental and serves to preserve the status quo. Finally, we reflect on the other challenges for the regulatory reform agenda and suggest some themes for future research, especially in a comparative perspective.
2013
Great Expectations, Slow Transformations: Incremental change in post-crisis regulation
ECPR Press
193
216
9781907301544
http://press.ecpr.eu/book_details.asp?bookTitleID=83
crisis, regulatory change
Moschella M; Tsingou E
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2318/117773
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