The Future of Banking (VoxEU.org eBooks)

Three years after the Lehman Brothers failure sent shockwaves through financial markets, banks are yet again in the centre of the storm. While in 2008 financial institutions ‘caused’ the crisis and triggered widespread bailouts followed by fiscal stimulus programmes to limit the fall-out of the banking crisis for the rest of the economy, banks now seem to be more on the receiving end. The sovereign debt crisis in several southern European countries and potential large losses from a write-down of Greek debt make the solvency position of many European banks doubtful, which in turn explains the limited funding possibilities for many banks. As pointed by out many economists, policy mistakes have made a bad situation even worse.

This Vox eBook presents a collection of essays by leading European and US economists that offer solutions to the crisis and proposals for medium- to long-term reforms to the regulatory framework in which financial institutions operate.

The contributors are Viral Acharya, Thorsten Beck, Arnoud Boot, Markus Brunnermeier, Luis Garicano, Harry Huizinga, Steven Ongena, Marco Pagano, Jose-Luis Peydro, Luc Laeven Philip Lane, Ross Levine, Enrico Perotti, Ricardo Reis, Matthew Richardson, Tano Santos, Dirk Schoenmaker, David Thesmar, Neeltje van Horen, Stijn van Nieuwerburgh, Dimitri Vayanos and Charles Wyplosz.