The lockdown continues and so does our research, but you are not alone in this!
The Finance, Law and Economics Working Group is ready to start with its first meetup on Wednesday, April 8th at 5 pm CET.
Here is the link: https://ysi.ineteconomics.org/project/5e78e3e952bbee2c4f0a0229/event/5e8796eca67d3c45fafe6c0b
During our first meetup, we will discuss with Dr. Orkun Saka about his last paper "Financial Policymaking after Crises: Public vs. Private Interests" (see abstract below).
As anticipated there will be a short presentation (15 min) followed by an informal discussion (15/20 min).
This meetup will be a good way for us, members of the Finance, Law, Economics working group, to stay in touch and make everybody feel more energized and motivated.
If you want to present in one of the following meetups, you can send us an abstract of 300 words to:
[email protected]; [email protected]
We accept presentation proposals on a rolling basis.
See you online!
ABSTRACT
"Financial Policymaking after Crises: Public vs. Private Interests"
Very few papers in the literature have focused on what drives actual government policies after financial crises. We first present a simple model of post-crisis policymaking driven by both public and private interests. Using the most comprehensive dataset available on de-facto financial liberalization across 94 countries between 1973 and 2015, we show that financial crises can trigger policy reversals, i.e. they can lead to more government intervention and a process of re-regulation of financial markets. We also find that post-crisis interventions are common only in democratic countries suggesting a demand channel from public to policymakers. However, by using a plausibly exogenous political setting muting policymakers’ accountability, we document that democratic leaders who do not have re-election concerns are substantially more likely to intervene in financial markets after crises (but not before), implying that strong private interests are also at play. These interventions due to private interests are reflected especially in controversial policy areas such as interest rate controls or bank entry barriers and not in areas such
as banking supervision or capital controls that are usually considered as more aligned with public interest.