International Regulatory Reform Report 2008

In recent years, there have been many programs and initiatives focusing on improving the performance, cost-effectiveness and legal quality of regulations. The International Regulatory Reform Report 2008 reviews these developments in five key countries, namely France, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The selected pool of countries shares a variety of initiatives and techniques including reduction of red-tape and economic instruments for regulatory policy-making. The report discusses "better regulation initiatives, structures and instruments of each country, informing the reader about the economic attractiveness and cost-effectiveness of key regulatory reform countries as well as the accountability and efficiency of their national governments. The study's cross-national approach and its focus on specific strategies and instruments make it relevant to practitioners and academics alike.

In recent years, there have been many programs and initiatives focusing on improving the performance, cost-effectiveness and legal quality of regulations. The International Regulatory Reform Report 2008 reviews these developments in five key countries, namely France, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The selected pool of countries shares a variety of initiatives and techniques including reduction of red-tape and economic instruments for regulatory policy-making. The report discusses "better regulation initiatives, structures and instruments of each country, informing the reader about the economic attractiveness and cost-effectiveness of key regulatory reform countries as well as the accountability and efficiency of their national governments. The study's cross-national approach and its focus on specific strategies and instruments make it relevant to practitioners and academics alike.

This guide helps officials use perception surveys for evaluating and communicating progress in regulatory reform. It explains the challenges involved in the design and use of business and citizen perception surveys – and ways to overcome them.

The 2008 crash was the worst financial crisis and the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression. It triggered a complete overhaul of the global regulatory environment, ushering in a stream of new rules and laws to combat the perceived weakness of the financial system. While the global economy came back from the brink, the continuing effects of the crisis include increasing economic inequality and political polarization. After the Crash is an innovative analysis of the crisis and its ongoing influence on the global regulatory, financial, and political landscape, with timely discussions of the key issues for our economic future. It brings together a range of experts and practitioners, including Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winner; former congressman Barney Frank; former treasury secretary Jacob Lew; Paul Tucker, a former deputy governor of the Bank of England; and Steve Cutler, general counsel of JP Morgan Chase during the financial crisis. Each poses crucial questions: What were the origins of the crisis? How effective were international and domestic regulatory responses? Have we addressed the roots of the crisis through reform and regulation? Are our financial systems and the global economy better able to withstand another crash? After the Crash is vital reading as both a retrospective on the last crisis and an analysis of possible sources of the next one.

The April 2018 Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR) finds that short-term risks to financial stability have increased somewhat since the previous GFSR. Medium-term risks are still elevated as financial vulnerabilities, which have built up during the years of accommodative policies, could mean a bumpy road ahead and put growth at risk. This GFSR also examines the short- and medium-term implications for downside risks to growth and financial stability of the riskiness of corporate credit allocation. It documents the cyclical nature of the riskiness of corporate credit allocation at the global and country levels and its sensitivity to financial conditions, lending standards, and policy and institutional settings. Another chapter analyzes whether and how house prices move in tandem across countries and major cities around the world—that is, global house price synchronicity.

This report encourages governments to “think big” about the relevance of regulatory policy and assesses the recent efforts of OECD countries to develop and deepen regulatory policy and governance.

Using a multi-country panel of banks, we study whether better capitalized banks experienced higher stock returns during the financial crisis. We differentiate among various types of capital ratios: the Basel risk-adjusted ratio; the leverage ratio; the Tier I and Tier II ratios; and the tangible equity ratio. We find several results: (i) before the crisis, differences in capital did not have much impact on stock returns; (ii) during the crisis, a stronger capital position was associated with better stock market performance, most markedly for larger banks; (iii) the relationship between stock returns and capital is stronger when capital is measured by the leverage ratio rather than the risk-adjusted capital ratio; (iv) higher quality forms of capital, such as Tier 1 capital and tangible common equity, were more relevant.

The EU and the US responded to the global financial crisis by changing the rules for the functioning of financial services and markets and by establishing new oversight bodies. With the US Dodd–Frank Act and numerous EU regulations and directives now in place, this book provides a timely and thoughtful explanation of the key elements of the new regimes in both regions, of the political processes which shaped their content and of their practical impact. Insights from areas such as economics, political science and financial history elucidate the significance of the reforms. Australia's resilience during the financial crisis, which contrasted sharply with the severe problems that were experienced in the EU and the US, is also examined. The comparison between the performances of these major economies in a period of such extreme stress tells us much about the complex regulatory and economic ecosystems of which financial markets are a part.