Verdict on the Crash: Causes and Policy Implications

This title features contributions from James Alexander, Michael Beenstock, Philip Booth, Eamonn Butler, Tim Congdon, Laurence Copeland, Kevin Dowd, John Greenwood, Samuel Gregg, John Kay, David Llewellyn, Alan Morrison, D. R Myddelton, Anna Schwartz and Geoffrey Wood. This book challenges the myth that the recent banking crisis was caused by insufficient statutory regulation of financial markets. Though it finds that statutory regulation failed, and that market participants took more risks than they should have done, it appears that statutory regulation made matters worse rather than better. Furthermore the fifteen experts who have contributed to this study find that government policy failed in other respects too. As with the boom and bust that led to the Great Depression, loose monetary policy on both sides of the Atlantic helped to promote an asset price bubble and credit boom which, at some stage, was bound to have serious consequences. Rejecting the failed approach of discretionary detailed regulation of the financial system, the authors instead propose specific and incisive regulatory tools that are designed to target, in a non-intrusive way, particular weaknesses in a banking system that is backed by deposit insurance. This study, by some of the most eminent authors in the field, is essential reading for all those who are interested in the policy implications of recent events in financial markets.

Table of Contents:
Introduction by Philip Booth; The successes and failures of UK monetary policy, 2000-08 by John Greenwood; Origins of the financial market crisis of 2008 by Anna J. Schwartz; The financial crisis: blame governments, not bankers by Eamonn Butler; Market foundations for the new financial architecture by Michael Beenstock; The failure of capital adequacy regulation by Kevin Dowd; Regulatory arbitrage and over-regulation by James Alexander; Banking regulation and the lender-of-last-resort role of the central bank by Tim Congdon; Accounting aspects of the financial crisis by D R Myddelton; The non-problem of short selling by Laurence Copeland; Ratings agencies, regulation and financial market stability by Alan D Morrison; The global financial crisis: the role of financial innovation by David T Llewellyn; Moral failure: borrowing, lending and the financial crisis by Samuel Gregg; More regulation, less regulation or better regulation? by Philip Booth; Thoughtful regulation by Geoffrey Wood; The future of financial services regulation by John Kay; The global financial crisis: incentive structures and implications for regulation by David T Llewellyn.

About the Author :
Philip Booth is editorial and program director at the Institute of Economic Affairs and a professor of insurance and risk management at Cass Business School. He worked for the Bank of England as an advisor on financial stability issues and has written widely, including a number of books, on investment, finance, social insurance, and pensions, as well as on the relationship between Catholic social teaching and economics. He is editor of economic affairs and associate editor of the Annals of Actuarial Science and the British Actuarial Journal.