This paper is concerned with the allegation that fair value accounting rules have contributed significantly to the recent financial crisis. It focuses on one particular channel for that contribution: the impact of fair value on actual or potential failure of banks. The paper compares four...

The paper provides the IMF staff views on policy options to mitigate the risks posed by institutions perceived as too-important-to-fail (“TITF"). These institutions have become bigger and more complex since the crisis, and risky practices have started to reappear. The paper emphasizes the need...

The existing international financial regulatory architecture is multifarious. Prevalent regulatory forums are numerous, with over-lapping spheres of activity, where all such forums share a lack of consolidated authority. Bodies like the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), Group of 20,...

The Irish financial crisis caused unprecedented damage to the national economy. While large amounts of tax-dollars have gone towards understanding the events leading up to the crisis, there has not been a concentrated effort to consolidate the lessons learned for both Ireland and the European...

This paper attempts to investigate the impact of credit information sharing on bank-specific stock price crash risk. Using a sample of 1,402 listed-banks in 55 countries for the period 2005-2013, we show that credit information sharing through public credit registries is negatively associated...

Several commentators have argued that financial “reform” legislation enacted after a market crash is invariably flawed, results in “quack corporate governance” and “bubble laws,” and should be discouraged. This criticism has been specifically directed at both the Sarbanes-Oxley Act...

Financial regulation today is largely framed by traditional business categories. The financial markets, however, have begun to bypass those categories, principally over the last thirty years. Chief among the changes has been convergence in the products and services offered by traditional...

This study analyzes the trends in the financial sector over the past 30 years, and argues that unsupervised financial innovations and lenient government regulation are at the root of the current financial crisis and recession. Combined with a long period of economic expansion during which...