Central banking at a crossroads

Last year, DIIS hosted a large international conference, Central Banking at a Crossroads: Europe and beyond. Now an edited book is being published as a follow-up on the conference. The list of contributors include a number of prominent experts: Professor Anat Admati, Stanford University; Claudio Borio, Head of the Monetary and Economic Department in the Bank of International Settlements; Professor Charles Goodhart, London School of Economics; Andrew Haldane, Chief Economist and Executive Director of Monetary Analysis and Statistics at the Bank of England, to name just a few of them.

Central Banking at a Crossroads reflects on the innovations that central banks have introduced since the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers to improve their modes of intervention, regulation and resolution of financial markets and financial institutions. Authors from both academia and policy circles explore these innovations through four approaches: ‘Bank Capital Regulation’ examines the Basel III agreement; ‘Bank Resolution’ focuses on effective regimes for regulating and resolving ailing banks; ‘Central Banking with Collateral-Based Finance’ develops thought on the challenges that market-based finance pose for the conduct of central banking; and ‘Where Next for Central Banking’ examines the trajectory of central banking and its new, central role in sustaining capitalism.

Table of contents:

Preface;

1. Introduction;

2. Constraining Discretion in Bank Regulation;

3. Fallacies and Irrelevant Facts in the Discussion of Capital Regulation;

4. Complexity, Interconnectedness: Business Models and the Basel System;

5. At the Brink of Insolvency: Shallow Recapitalization Exercise Fails to Bolster Europe’s Ailing Banks;

6. Bank Resolution in Comparative Perspective: What Lessons for Europe?;

7. Resolving Problem Banks: A Review of the Global Evidence;

8. Bank Resolution in New Zealand and Its Implications for Europe;

9. Collateral and Monetary Policy;

10. The ECB and the Political Economy of Collateral;

11. The Backstory of the Risk-Free Asset: How Government Debt Become “Safe”;

12. Central Banking Post-Crisis: What Compass for Uncharted Waters?;

13. Reconceptualising Central Bank Unconventional Policies: Long Positions on No-Growth Capitalism;

14. The Future Relationship between Central Banks and Governments: What Are Central Banks For?;

15. Is New Governance the Ideal Architecture for Global Financial Regulation?