Abstract

The latest financial crisis has been caused by a mixture of state and market failure, argues Otmar Issing. To avoid future crises, more transparency is needed – not by gathering more information, but by gathering it systematically and thereby creating “intelligent transparency”. Furthermore, regulation has to be global, he states. The necessary institutions are in place: The International Monetary Fund, the Financial Stability Board and the Bank for International Settlements.

Stephany Griffith-Jones and Stefano Pagliari point out, that containing “systemic risk” is one of the most important rationales for regulating financial markets. Our understanding of the sources of systemic risk has repeatedly been challenged by major episodes of financial instability. The crisis that started in the summer of 2007 has been no exception. They discuss how the latest global financial crisis urges analysts and regulators to rethink the origin of systemic risk beyond a narrow focus on the banking sector, beyond the “too big to fail problem”, and beyond a narrow micro-prudential focus. They focus on two regulatory principles: comprehensiveness and countercyclicality.

Claudia Buch und Katja Neugebauer review the existing empirical evidence on whether the increase in cross-border activities has allowed banks to diversify risks and to what extent it has increased banks’ exposure to systemic risks.

JEL-Classifications: G28, G18 G01, F3, F30, E44