13 Feb 2020

Identifying and Remedying Deferential Norms in Prudential Cultures

The Finance, Law, and Economics and Political Economy of Europe working groups are thrilled to announce the first webinar in our series in preparation for our meeting with Dr Andrea Enria, Chair of the Supervisory Board of the ECB. This kick off session is entitled "Identifying and Remedying Deferential Norms in the Prudential Cultures for Regulating Banks and Other Financial Firms in Particular Areas of the World", and will be hosted by Edward Kane (Boston College). The aim of this first session is to critically assess the cultural differences in rule enforceability in the supervisory domain, in order to extract specific questions that we would like to address to Dr Enria.More concretely, the session will examine the substantial literature comparing differences in the formal structure of financial rules that apply in different countries, and will focus on the little work that compares differences in the cultures surrounding their enforceability. Understanding the norms of a country's regulatory culture is important if one is trying to predict how governments will respond to actual-- as opposed to hypothetical--crisis pressures. The session will critically explore the assumptions beyond rule enforcement by focusing on US and EU policy makers, and the consequences that these assumptions have on the way crisis are handled. Finally, the session aims to foster research that goes beyond comparisons between formal differences, to work that focuses on actual cultural enforceability dimensions.

3 Mar 2020

Digital Banking Ecosystem: The Challenges Ahead

The Finance, Law, and Economics and the Political Economy of Europe working group are glad to host the second webinar in preparation for our meeting with Dr Enria in Frankfurt, on April 27. This second session "Digital Banking Ecosystem: The Challenges Ahead" will be presented by Giuseppe Colangelo (Jean Monnet Professor of European Innovation Policy), and it aims to critically explore the main aspects concerning the new banking paradigm introduced by 'Open Banking'. The webinar will particularly focus on the increasing importance of data protection and data ownership, and the role of third parties in the Open Banking domain; the risks and benefits for consumers deriving from the broader offered by these new actors; and competition issues between incumbents, Fintech e Bigtech. The ultimate aim of this session is to critically explore the challenges that these transformations pose to the role played by supervisor and policy makers, and to extract the most fundamental questions that we would like to ask Dr. Enria in our meeting, in connection to banking and new technologies.

14 Apr 2020

Paul Volcker and the Transformation of Finance

New date announced! The Finance, Law, and Economics, and the Political Economy of Europe working groups are happy to host the third webinar from the series in preparation to our meeting with Andrea Enria, Chair of the Supervisory Board of the ECB (which will be rescheduled according to the developments in the Covid-19 situation).The third webinar, "Paul Volcker and the Transformation of Finance" will be hosted by Robert Johnson (President, INET) and Gaurav Vasisht (Senior vice president and Director of financial regulation initiatives, The Volcker Alliance). Paul Volcker has been a policymaker and an intellectual force behind the evolution of the financial systems since the 1970s. As the president of the Fed, he propelled a process of market deregulation with far reaching consequences, but later in life, when he thought a limit had been reached, he made influential calls for moderation.Robert Johnson and Gaurav Vasisht will discuss the political and economic context in which Volcker's journey unfolded, the crucial decisions made, as well as the economic theories that inspired it. This third webinar will be crucial to better understand both technical and historical aspects surrounding the transformation of financial regulation, and will help us sharpen our discussion agenda and questions to be posed to Dr Enria during our dialogue.We look forward to seeing you online!

24 Jun 2020

When Things Don’t Fall Apart - Global financial incoherence and beyond

We are glad to announce our forth webinar in the series 'Central bankers and new banking paradigms: Dialogue with Andrea Enria'. Although our event had to be suspended, we decided to continue with the webinar series in order to keep on exploring interesting topics related to the global financial architecture. We are thrilled to have Prof Ilene Grabel with us, who will present her latest book and provide us with further reflections on financial governance in the era of Covid-19. When Things Don’t Fall Apart: Global Financial Governance and Developmental Finance in an Age of Productive Incoherence (The MIT Press, 2017) won the 2019 European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy Myrdal Prize, the 2019 Int'l Studies Association International Political Economy Best Book Award, & the 2018 British Int'l Studies Association International Political Economy Book Prize. Open access edition of the book available at: https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/3634/When-Things-Don-t-Fall-ApartGlobal-Financial In When things Don’t Fall Apart, Ilene Grabel makes a simple but controversial claim, based on the work of the eminent social scientist Albert O. Hirschman. Grabel argues that as concerns global financial governance and development finance we are now in a period that she calls productive incoherence. Unlike the Keynesian period of the middle 20th century and the neoliberal period that followed, the current conjuncture lacks an overarching theoretical framework to guide financial governance. In its absence, Grabel maps the proliferation of institutional innovation at the national, regional, and transregional levels. These experiments are grounded in a spirit of Hirschmanian pragmatism rather than Keynesian or neoclassical dogmatism. They are ad hoc, often limited in scope, and even inconsistent with each other. They are in that sense incoherent. The book’s novel normative claim is that this incoherence is productive. It is allowing for new institutional and policy innovations that are contributing to a pluripolar financial governance architecture that is more robust and offers greater opportunities for problem solving and experimentation than the coherent architecture it is displacing. Grabel substantiates these claims with empirically-rich case studies that explore the effects of recent crises on established and new networks of financial governance (such as the G-20); transformations within the IMF; institutional innovations in liquidity support and project finance from the national to the transregional levels; and the “rebranding” of capital controls. Grabel acknowledges, however, that the incoherent transformations underway also pose grave risks. She considers these risks in the concluding chapter of the book. Grabel will also reflect on the constructive and destructive aspects of incoherence in the global financial arena in the era of Covid-19. Speaker's short bioIlene Grabel is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Denver and Professor of International Finance at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies of the University of Denver (USA). She co-directs the graduate program in Global Finance, Trade, and Economic Integration at the Korbel School. Her research and teaching interests focus on the political economy of international financial policy, institutions, and financial flows; global financial governance; global, regional, and transregional financial architectures; and finance and economic development. See more of Prof Grabel's journal articles, book chapters and working papers here: https://ilenegrabel.com/journal_book_papers/ For those that would like to participate but are not currently registered in the Young Scholars Directory, feel free to contact cecilia.delbarrio@unitn.it to get the link ahead of the event. We look forward to seeing you online! Orsola, Stefano, and Cecilia