Tragedy of the commons

Ten Precepts for 21st Century Regulators

The regulatory reforms that followed the financial crisis of 2007-09 created a financial system that is far more resilient than the one in place 15 years ago. Yet, the events of March 2023 make clear that the progress thus far is simply not enough. To ensure resilience, we need to do more.

To steer the process of further reform, we propose a set of 10 precepts that those who make the rules should keep in mind as they refine the prudential framework. These practical guidelines lead us to conclusions that mirror those in a recent post: regulation should be more rule-based (less reliant on supervisory insight or discretion); simpler and more transparent; stricter and more rigorous; and more efficient in its use of resources. Concretely, this approach means increasing capital and liquidity requirements; shifting to mark-to-market accounting; and improving the transparency, flexibility and severity of capital and liquidity stress tests.

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Free Riding in Finance: A Primer

Many features of our financial system—institutions like banks and insurance companies, as well as the configuration of securities markets—are a consequence of legal conventions (the rules about property rights and taxes) and the costs associated with obtaining and verifying information. When we teach money and banking, three concepts are key to understanding the structure of finance: adverse selection, moral hazard, and free riding. The first two arise from asymmetric information, either before (adverse selection) or after (moral hazard) making a financial arrangement (see our earlier primers here and here).

This primer is about the third concept: free riding. Free riding is tied to the concept of a public good, so we start there. Then, we offer three examples where free riding plays a key role in the organization of finance: credit ratings; schemes like the Madoff scandal; and efforts to secure financial stability more broadly....

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