We discuss the literature on the shift from stakeholder to shareholder finance behind the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). Traditional banks generally maximized stakeholder value (STV). But before the GFC also many of them started maximizing shareholder value (SHV). Moving from STV to SHV often...

There are few things more constant in life than the rise and fall of financial markets. When markets crash, however, we are forced to restore them while learning from our mistakes. In the wake of the recent subprime mortgage crisis, Congress has drastically but deservedly overhauled the...

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...

We examine the political dynamics which led to the codification of the Principles and Standards for sound compensation practices at financial institutions at international (G 20) level and to their subsequent implementation on both sides of the Atlantic. We show that the regulation of bankers'...

The paper outlines the developments in the EU regulatory framework for executive remuneration since 2004 and going through the financial crisis. It also presents the results of an analysis of the remuneration practices adopted by the largest European listed firms before and after the crisis,...

The UBS- Credit Suisse (CS) merger in March 2023, one of the biggest banking unions in history, was an emergency rescue deal engineered by Swiss authorities to avoid more market-shaking turmoil in global banking. The merger resulted in a significant increase in the combined stakeholder net...

The recent financial crisis has generated many distinct perspectives from various quarters. In this article, I review a diverse set of 21 books on the crisis, 11 written by academics, and 10 written by journalists and one former Treasury Secretary. No single narrative emerges from this broad and...

The governance of infrastructure institutions in the financial markets – namely exchanges, central counter-parties (CCPs), and central securities depositories (CSDs) – has become a matter of significant commercial, regulatory, legislative, and even political concern. Such institutions play a...

A belief that markets are efficient is blamed for instigating the crisis we are in and lulling us into complacency as the crisis was approaching. But the debate about the role of such belief in the crisis is unfocused for two reasons. First, a lack of a common definition of market efficiency...