About the Book
The Global Financial Crisis is undoubtedly the most severe financial crisis the world witnessed since the Great Depression of 1929. The crisis has been analysed by a number of experts offering distinct narratives and counter-narratives.
Systemic Risk and Macroprudential Regulations examines causes and consequences of the global financial crisis and proposes a regulatory reforms policy—macroprudential regulations. The book emphasizes ‘systemic risk’ as the new-found villain of the financial space and narrates how such risk can be addressed through macroprudential tools. It, thus, offers a possible solution to avoid financial crises in future and facilitates building a safer financial system globally. The book also examines major crisis management frameworks, stress testing, relevant regulatory and supervisory development, and early warning mechanism with detailed cross-country analysis.
Table of Contents:
Foreword by Benjamin M. Friedman
Preface
Introduction
Part I: Post-crisis Financial Regulatory Reform
Strengthening Capital and Liquidity Requirements
Regulatory Framework Beyond Capital and Liquidity
Part II: Managing Systemic Risk through Macroprudential Policy
Macroprudential Policy
Early Warning Systems
Stress Testing Programme
Tools for Macroprudential Policy
Part III: Managing Financial Crisis
Financial Crisis Management Framework
Part IV- Coordination in International Policymaking
Dynamics of International Policy Coordination
New Approaches to International Policy Coordination
Macrofinancial Policy Coordination in the Current Milieu
Epilogue: Potential Concerns for Central Banks
Index
About the Author :
Rabi N. Mishra is an Economist by education and a Senior Financial Sector Risk Specialist by profession.
A central banker for more than three decades, he is currently the Executive Director of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), India’s central bank. Previously, he was the Principal Chief General Manager of Risk Monitoring Department of RBI, Mumbai, and head of the Reserve Bank Staff College, training institute of senior central banking professionals of the RBI, Chennai. Dr Mishra was the head of Financial Stability Unit at the RBI and served as head of the RBI in two states: Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. He has professional expertise in bank regulation/supervision, financial stability, macrofinancial surveillance and risk mitigating mechanics in banking and central banks.
He completed his MA in Monetary/Financial Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University (MA) and was a Research scholar at Delhi School of Economics. Dr Mishra earned his PhD from University of Mumbai. He has done post doctorate from the Economics Department of Harvard University. He has written many research papers of topical policy relevance and has spoken in reputed international platforms on areas of monetary economics, banking, financial stability and risk management.
He is an awardee of the Golden Jubilee Scholarship of the RBI and the Diamond Jubilee Fellowship of Indian Institute of Banking and Finance (IIBF). He has authored a book on asset securitization. Dr Mishra can be contacted at rabi60@gmail.com
Review :
An excellent study of the causes and effects of the Global Financial Crisis. The author judgement is good and his writing is clear and lucid. It is a fine contribution to the literature in this field, and those who wish to learn about the GFC will benefit by reading it.
I have seen the chapter outlines, and I am deeply impressed by the coverage. It includes a good literature survey and has raised almost all critical issues that surfaced after the crisis. It is indeed a comprehensive book and has the added merit of a view from a seasoned central banker of a developing country. This book should be useful not only to policymakers but also to the regulators and practical bankers.
Dr Mishra should be complimented for writing an eminently readable book on a complex subject of great contemporary interest. The impact and implications of Global Financial Crisis on the theory and practice of financial sector are brought out very clearly. It has the imprint of deep insights, long experience and clarity in articulation. The book should be of interest to academics as well as practitioners, since it explores public policy, keeping in view the lessons from Global Financial Crisis.
The Global Financial Crisis, the deepest and the most ferocious since the Great Depression of the 1930s, triggered an enormous amount of analysis aimed at understanding its causes and consequences. A lot has already been written about the lessons learnt from the crisis, the reforms instituted drawing from those lessons, and importantly, whether the corrective action is insurance enough against another crisis. Even in such a crowded intellectual field, this book stands out for its comprehensive coverage, cogent argumentation and real-world perspectives. It is a testimonial to Mishra’s passion for scholarship and commitment to analytical rigour.
Many lessons have been learned from the Global Financial Crisis leading to several reforms which have been elucidated excellently and comprehensively in the book. As the title indicates, macroprudential regulation is evolving but the book could not have come at a more propitious time since we face the danger of forgetting the causes and consequences of the crisis leading to calls for a dilution of the regulatory framework. The book raises relevant questions and also provides solutions. It is a great work, which I strongly recommend for general and for teaching purposes.
Macroprudential policy represents a paradigm change in the regulation of the financial system in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis. It is a new area and there is considerable amount of research going on. Dr Rabi Mishra’s book covers vast ground in this area. It is a comprehensive book capturing the nuances of one of the biggest crises that the financial world ever saw. Dr Mishra has indeed taken pains to put together the full wherewithal of the Global Financial Crisis and the evolution of the financial world thereafter. The book covers almost all important issues in the design and implementation of macroprudential policy and would be of immense benefit to researchers, central bankers, regulators, policymakers and students.
Ten years after the financial crisis, lessons are still being drawn and debated about the causal factors and appropriate responses to them. One area of broad consensus is that portfolio decisions of large financial institutions could have macroeconomic consequences. The paradigm of macroprudential regulation is based on this premise. Dr Mishra was an early participant in this process by virtue of his association with the RBI’s Financial Stability Unit. He combines his analytical skills with his practical exposure and experience in this book, bringing a very important emerging market perspective to this critical issue. It will be a major contribution to a growing literature.
It is a delightful guide, full of important information for those of us who want to know everything about the Global Financial Crisis (GFC)—its origin, its impact and its consequences. The biggest learning from the GFC was the fact that the silo-based approach from the regulator is not going to work anymore and the extant macro view needs to be diligently strengthened across the world. Dr Mishra was one of the key minds behind the development of the macroprudential framework at the RBI and the way he has dealt with the subject reciprocates his in-depth grasp on the subject.
Since the Global Financial Crisis of 2007–2008, the economics profession, the central banks, financial regulators and the international financial institutions (IFIs) have been searching their souls to understand what went wrong and how to prevent such a disaster from happening again. Much of the blame for the GFC has been placed on the central banks, financial regulators and supervisors in each country, as well as on the international financial regulatory institutions for failing to foresee the problems in the financial system and for not doing their jobs, that is, of being asleep at the switch.
In his timely and very important book, Rabi N. Mishra, an official at the Reserve Bank of India and a specialist in financial regulation, has written a highly useful survey of the issues and the solutions to financial instability proposed by the financial authorities in the key advanced countries and in the IFIs, especially the BIS and FSB. The chapters in the book explain in useful detail the state-of-the-art new tools of macroprudential regulation being developed, especially capital and liquidity ratios, and other techniques such as stress tests and international standards and policy cooperation. This book will be of enormous value to regulators, financial practitioners and students of the international financial system.
This book is a tour de force! Dr Mishra has a sure grasp of the microeconomics of finance which allows him to explain in simple terms those key areas which need effective regulation—asymmetric information, principal–agent problems, the tragedy of the commons and many others. He understands the close link monetary policy has with systemic risk. He has been a consummate insider in the international regulatory reform process for years. But he does not hesitate to identify the intellectual blind spots and wishful thinking of some of those in the regulatory community.
The Great Recession and Global Financial Crisis were, one would hope, teachable moments. In the aftermath of these roiling economic events, we have the potential to learn not only how to supervise and regulate our financial systems better but also how to ‘think’ about our economic systems better. The assumptions that markets are self-righting, that agents are rational and that asset prices convey the information necessary for efficient market clearing (to name a few) have all been profoundly challenged by the events of the recession and crisis. If we recognize that markets can sometimes be self-destructive, irrational and inefficient in transmitting information, we will do better in designing our financial systems to withstand the sorts of disruptions that arise from such behaviour. Dr Mishra’s book recognizes these shortcomings in our understanding of financial systems and explores in detail the multiple margins on which countries have made advances in making their systems more robust to the inevitable financial disruptions. In doing so, he provides a valuable compendium of views on the causes of the crisis, the consequences and the proposed solution. I can think of no one who is in a better position to do so than Dr Mishra, from his perch at the Reserve Bank of India.
The financial sector is truly global today with significant linkages between nations. The Global Financial Crisis beginning in the USA in 2008 spread fast and seriously disrupted many economies. Many a common man suffered and the anger lingers as people still believe that those responsible have not been held to account. Dr Mishra’s experience and perspective give him a unique perch. He provides a detailed analysis of the crisis, examines the technical, regulatory and ethical aspects, and suggests ways to work towards a more stable system. This is a valuable addition to the literature.
Dr Rabi Mishra was the first Chief General Manager of the Financial Stability Unit of the RBI that was set up in the aftermath of the 2007 Great Financial Crisis. His vision and enthusiasm helped to drive the agenda of getting data and models to help regulators to look at the risks in the Indian financial system in a more holistic way as befits macroprudential policy. Supported by the then Deputy Governor, Shyamala Gopinath, Dr Mishra was instrumental in mandating who-to-whom bilateral balance sheet data from major banks (including foreign banks in India) and non-bank financial institutions such as insurance companies and mutual funds. This was a first of its kind. I was brought in as senior consultant (2011–2014) to set up a digital financial network map and model the banking and financial market balance sheet interconnectedness for India. My brief was to give granular data visualization and provide a systemic risk metric that reflected the perils of leverage in the network of financial liabilities, and thereby avoid the pitfalls of paradoxical market price-based risk measures that underestimate risk when leverage is growing. I was impressed by the pragmatism and good sense of the RBI senior management who were refreshingly free of the dogma that blindsided their counterparts in the West. Having actively used countercyclical risk weights long before it became the mantra in the West and also through measures such as banning exotic options, the RBI regulators, in the run-up to the crisis and during it, had a better track record than many other central banks. I expect Dr Mishra’s book to reflect such sound principles of stewardship and openness to new holistic approaches for risk management.
The book is an excellent overview of the changing landscape for financial sector analysis and policies in the post-crisis world. Rabi Mishra discusses in-depth reasons why we now need to reorient financial sector surveillance towards monitoring the accumulation of systemic risk and how do the recent regulatory reforms including Basel III and the introduction of macroprudential policy help maintain financial stability. In the analytical area, attention is given to early warning systems and stress-testing—two key tools that were with us before the Global Financial Crisis but experienced substantial improvements recently to serve as useful guidance for implementing and calibrating macroprudential policy tools. Rabi Mishra does not stop here though; he opens additional topics on which there is no clear consensus yet, such as global coordination of monetary and financial sector policies and emergence of new risks that are under-researched as to their possible impact on future financial stability.
The Global Financial crisis had varied reasons and many ramifications. The world economic order has been reset, and it is important to capture full dimension and consequences of the crisis to learn the lessons and emerge as a stronger and more resilient nation. This book evidently exhibits the significant macroprudential policies laid down by the regulators with an intent to counter the forces of crisis. I believe that this book is a guide for the policymakers, researchers and academicians. The insights of Dr Rabi Mishra are incisive and perceptive. He has the fabulous ability to synthesize a complex topic into truthful simplicity.
This book has aptly described the evolution of macroprudential policy, taking examples of various causes of the Global Financial Crisis 2008 and the lessons learnt from it. Wearing a regulator’s hat, the author dwelt on post-crisis regulatory reforms to mitigate various risk elements and finally narrated a crisis management framework and stresstesting mechanism. The book is an interesting read for the students of economics as well as the practising bankers to gain a holistic idea about the subject.
Ten years since the GFC is a good time to evaluate the responses to it: their effectiveness determines whether we can prevent its recurrence. Dr Rabi Mishra has the knowledge and experience to undertake this task and the result is a compelling read for all concerned with the subject, that is, all of us.
This is a useful and important contribution to the debate about the forces that contributed to the global financial crisis. The book also provides a practitioner’s insights about what is needed to fix in financial systems so that they are less vulnerable to systemic crashes and also how to deal with such crashes if they do occur.
Much has been written about the Global Financial Crisis—a defining event not just for the global economy but also for the economics discipline. Dr Mishra has written a wide-ranging book that is a worthy contribution to the debate.
In the ten years since the Global Financial Crisis, we have made great strides in understanding its causes and consequences, and perhaps most importantly, what might be done to avoid a similar catastrophe. Rabi Mishra’s book provides a thorough treatment of these lessons, and a fresh perspective, from someone who spent the time period sufficiently involved to develop a deep understanding, but sufficiently distant to avoid many potential biases.
“The academic world will definitely find this a useful reference book… written by someone who has been a central banker for more than a decade, is different from the pack.”
“In his inimitable and engaging writing style, Dr. Mishra creates a superb framework for the readers to understand the idea of Systemic Risk and Macroprudential Regulations to manage this risk… I would recommend this stimulating book to understand the topic of ‘Systemic Risk’ and how it can be addressed through ‘Macroprudential Regulations’ and also learn how to avoid financial crisis in future to facilitate building a safer financial system globally.”
The Book identifies Systemic Risk as the new villain and finds macroprudential policies as the best bet to address them. A sweet blend of use of monetary policy along with macroprudential tools in fact could be the best possible solution to handle brewing points of crises.
“This book, written by someone who has been a central banker for more than a decade, is different from the pack… He [Rabi N. Mishra] has dealt with a very complex subject with relative ease.. The academic world will definitely find this a useful reference book.”
