Financial re-regulation since the global crisis? : an index-based assessment

Domestic and international capital markets had been liberalised for decades until the mid-2000s. Then the global financial crisis struck. How has policy responded since the crisis: with re-regulation or continued liberalisation? This paper assembles a new dataset on financial policy from 2006 to 2015, by extending the International Monetary Fund’s index compiled by Abiad, Detragiache and Tressel (2010), the most widely used measure of financial reforms in cross-country empirical research. The data show that ownership and supervision are the two areas of financial policy which have changed most visibly. Bank recapitalisations have increased government ownership of banks, and reforms have strengthened prudential regulation and bank supervision. Finance continues to be substantially less liberalised in emerging market economies than in advanced countries. The new dataset is available for use by other empirical researchers.