It is widely agreed that failures of financial market regulation contributed to systemic instability and the credit crunch of 2007-9. However the reasons for such failures are matters of debate. Three levels of analysis are explored here: descriptive, explanatory and historical. First, and at a...

The consequences of banks and other financial firms being regarded as being ‘Too Connected To Fail' (TCTF) and of bailing out their senior bondholders include austerity, political dissent and a deepening of moral hazard – bondholders are effectively invited to back further risk-taking at...

Many observers blame regulatory failure for the financial crisis, arguing for closer international coordination of national regulation. This column argues for the opposite. Regulatory convergence creates instability. Instead, regulatory diversity is needed to reduce market herding and the...

This response to the 2009 UK White Paper on ‘Reforming Financial Markets' argues for stronger democratic oversight of regulators and for regulatory diversity in order to reduce ‘market herding' and the consequent systemic risks. In the context of hitherto weak democratic accountability and...

This chapter explores policy on and regulation of financial markets from the perspectives of rightist economist Joseph Schumpeter and leftist sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Why these two theorists? Because one, Schumpeter – a critical friend of markets – well illustrates contemporary economic...

The financial crisis has spread from private to public, from financial markets (2007-9) to sovereign states (2010 onwards). Concerns over ‘connectedness' – between banks, between banks and states, and hence between states – lies at the heart of the Eurozone debt crisis, just as it...

The unfolding market crisis reveals evasions of regulatory controls and frauds that were less visible in buoyant markets. International networking of regulators and those they regulated resulted in convergence of regulatory standards-and creation of common ‘blind spots'-corresponding to...