Learning from Eddy : A Meditation Upon Organizational Reform of Financial Supervision in Europe

In this essay written in honor of the retirement of Eddy Wymeersch, Professor Howell Jackson explores the manner in which European nations have moved towards more consolidated systems of financial regulation and discusses the implications of the European experience for the United States. While U.S. policy debates over regulatory reform often reduce to theoretical claims regarding the benefits and pitfalls of consolidation, the consolidation of oversight within the members states of the European Union offers many concrete examples of how consolidated supervision actually works. European experience demonstrates that there are many different ways in which to implement consolidated regulation, and often times the process of consolidation occurs gradually over a number of years. In addition to the expected advantages of increased efficiency and the elimination of regulatory gaps, European experience suggests that consolidated regulatory agencies often attract higher quality personnel and do a better job maintaining consistency across different sectors of the financial services industry. In addition, European reforms have devised a number of mechanisms to ensure that consolidated agencies remain politically accountable and resolve policy conflicts in an efficient and timely manner