The Federal German Constitutional Court has made it clear that it considers the OMT program to be in violation of the ECB’s mandate. This paper argues that the Court’s decision reflects an endorsement of the efficient-market hypothesis. If financial markets are efficient, interference of any...

Following the crisis of 2007, regulatory authorities either are or should be engaging in a fundamental reconsideration of how they approach financial regulation and supervision. This paper briefly summarizes the present international consensus on regulation as embodied in the Basel framework,...

Mainstream macro-models have assumed away financial frictions, in particular default. The minimum addition in order to introduce financial intermediaries, money and liquidity into such models is the possibility of default. This, in turn, requires that institutions and price formation mechanisms...

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With the OMT program the ECB has de facto taken over the role as a lender of last resort (LoLR) for euro area governments. While this has been welcomed by some, many policymakers and economists, in particular in Germany, have strongly criticized the ECB for taking this step, even though it has...

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The Bank of England’s ‘consultative document’ on Competition and Credit Control was published on May 14th, 1971. It was a landmark occasion, representing a decisive break with the prior system of maintaining direct controls over the, main components of the, UK banking system; the intention...

Making banks resolvable is a key component of the regulatory reform programme enacted in response to the crisis. A resolvable bank is one that is “safe to fail”: it can fail and be resolved without cost to the taxpayer and without significant disruption to the financial markets or the...

In a dramatic change from the euphoria in the early 2000s based on a widespread belief in the “success” of the partial independence of the Bank of England, UK policymakers are now faced with great uncertainties about the future. The Coalition government responded to the financial crisis by...