Market-Based Finance, Debt and Systemic Risk: A Critique of the EU Capital Markets Union

Modern, globalised financial markets are the offspring of a process of liberalisation of capital that started with the collapse of Bretton Woods in the 1970s and culminated with a number of regulatory changes in the 1980s and 1990s. As a consequence of that process, financial markets have grown dramatically and become increasingly integrated at a global level. Importantly, the growth and innovation that occurred over the past decade has taken place in the realm of capital market finance, and in particular in the context of market-based channels that revolved chiefly around securitisation and repo transactions. As a result, new debt transactions and products have been engineered since the 1980s. This article contends that, contrary to conventional belief, the excessive development of market-based channels of finance has been one of the catalysts behind the crises and scandals exploded over the past fifteen years. In particular, the employment of innovative debt transactions was instrumental to the creation of excessive levels of risk-taking and leverage. These had catastrophic consequence, both at firm level and at systemic level. Notwithstanding the regulatory measures that have been enacted over the past fifteen years, the way in which debt transactions in capital markets are designed and entered into remains lightly or indirectly regulated. Moreover, regulators have so far neglected the role that leverage and debt creation have in the economy and the consequence that these phenomena have on the wider social context. On the contrary, recently the EU has promoted the implementation of an old design, namely the Capital Markets Union (CMU). This revolves around market-based forms of financing, which should represent an alternative to the traditionally predominant (in Europe) bank-based financing channels. This article contends that the CMU framework fails to appreciate the dangers associated with capital markets finance and its ensuing debt creation effects. It argues that, despite some regulatory efforts, a suitable architecture for the regulation of market-based channels of finance is still missing.