Financial markets play a significant role in channeling funds from surplus spending units (fund givers) to deficit spending units (fund takers). Whether financial intermediation is carried out by banks or capital markets, market failures are ubiquitous and call for financial regulation. This...

This article analyzes the last financial crisis focusing on the recurrent dynamics of externalities in banking. It shows that two major determinants of the crisis were the uncertainty of a new form of financial intermediation and the failure of regulation to cope with its externalities....