IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/niesru/v206y2008i1p48-55.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Boundary Problem in Financial Regulation

Author

Listed:
  • Charles Goodhart

    (Financial Markets Group, London School of Economics, c.a.goodhart@lse.ac.uk)

Abstract

The current financial crisis has raised queries about the adequacy of the present regulatory regime. Whilst the immediate priority may be to plug the obvious holes in the system, there are some long-term generic problems with almost any system of financial regulation. This paper explores one such concern, i.e. the boundary problem. This arises because effective regulation, one that actually bites, is likely to penalise those within the regulated sector, relative to those just outside, causing substitution flows towards the unregulated. This boundary problem impacts on many proposals, such as `narrow banking' and my own, with Avinash Persaud, for state and time-varying capital adequacy requirements. The question of how and where to set the boundary is considered. Such boundaries will always be criticised as leading to disintermediation, competitive inequality (no level-playing-field), inefficiency and higher spreads and borrowing rates; and such criticisms will be valid up to a point. The paper ends by discussing how best to respond.

Suggested Citation

  • Charles Goodhart, 2008. "The Boundary Problem in Financial Regulation," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 206(1), pages 48-55, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:niesru:v:206:y:2008:i:1:p:48-55
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ner.sagepub.com/content/206/1/48.abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Janko Cizel & Jon Frost & Aerdt Houben & Peter Wierts, 2019. "Effective Macroprudential Policy: Cross‐Sector Substitution from Price and Quantity Measures," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(5), pages 1209-1235, August.
    2. Ghosh, Atish R. & Ostry, Jonathan D. & Qureshi, Mahvash S., 2018. "Taming the Tide of Capital Flows: A Policy Guide," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262037165, April.
    3. Molitor, Philippe & Doyle, Nicola & Hermans, Lieven & Weistroffer, Christian, 2016. "Shadow banking in the euro area: risks and vulnerabilities in the investment fund sector," Occasional Paper Series 174, European Central Bank.
    4. Charles A.E. Goodhart, 2011. "Financial Regulation," Chapters, in: Sylvester Eijffinger & Donato Masciandaro (ed.), Handbook of Central Banking, Financial Regulation and Supervision, chapter 12, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Schoenmaker, Dirk & Wierts, Peter, 2015. "Regulating the financial cycle: An integrated approach with a leverage ratio," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 70-72.
    6. Otaviano Canuto & Swati R. Ghosh, 2013. "Dealing with the Challenges of Macro Financial Linkages in Emerging Markets," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 16202.
    7. Caloca, Antonio Rodríguez & Rousová, Linda, 2018. "Disentangling euro area portfolios: new evidence on cross-border securities holdings," Statistics Paper Series 28, European Central Bank.
    8. Sheila Dow & Guðrún Johnsen & Alberto Montagnoli, 2015. "A critique of full reserve banking," Working Papers 2015008, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    9. Karim, Dilruba & Liadze, Iana & Barrell, Ray & Davis, E. Philip, 2013. "Off-balance sheet exposures and banking crises in OECD countries," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 673-681.
    10. Gabriele Galati & Richhild Moessner, 2018. "What Do We Know About the Effects of Macroprudential Policy?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 85(340), pages 735-770, October.
    11. Warapong Wongwachara & Bovonvich Jindarak & Nuwat Nookhwun & Sophon Tunyavetchakit & Chutipha Klungjaturavet, 2018. "Integrating Monetary Policy and Financial Stability: A New Framework," PIER Discussion Papers 100, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Regulation; boundary; disintermediation; JEL Classifications: E58; G18; G28;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:niesru:v:206:y:2008:i:1:p:48-55. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/niesruk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.