"Finance brings prosperity and danger. We use measurements of risk to try and control the dangers of investments while maximizing our growth. Current strategies rely on mathematical techniques and historical data to predict future risk, but ignore the human component, failing to take into...

Jon Danielsson discusses the use of capital ratios and macroprudential regulation and describes the limitations of each policy: How banks can inflate capital ratios, how capital requirements fail to reduce the risk of aggregate shocks and how Basel III regulations burden smaller banks relative...