The European Council's decisions to implement the De Larosiere recommendations for a reformed approach to micro-level financial supervision and a new European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) are to be welcomed. The ECB's central role in the ESRB is also to be welcomed. However, the limited role...

Financial supervision focuses on the aggregate (macroprudential) in addition to the individual (microprudential). But an agreed framework for measuring and addressing financial imbalances is lacking. We propose a holistic approach for the financial system as a whole, beyond banking. Building on...

Euro area governments have committed to break the doom loop between bank risk and sovereign risk. But policymakers have not reached consensus on whether and how to reform the regulatory treatment of banks' sovereign exposures. To inform policy discussions, this paper simulates portfolio...

This paper studies leverage regulation and monetary policy when equity investors and/or creditors have distorted beliefs relative to a planner. We characterize how the optimal leverage regulation responds to arbitrary changes in investors' and creditors' beliefs and relate our results to...

Do politics matter for macroprudential policy? I show that changes to macroprudential regulation exhibit a predictable electoral cycle in the run-up to 221 elections across 58 countries from 2000 through 2014. Policies restricting mortgages and consumer credit are systematically less likely to...

In the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis, regulators have rushed to strengthen banking supervision and implement bank resolution regimes. While such resolution regimes are welcome to reintroduce market discipline and reduce the reliance on taxpayer-funded bailouts, the effects on the wider...