Howard Davies, the first chairman of the United Kingdom’s Financial Services Authority (1997-2003), is Chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland. He was Director of the London School of Economics (2003-11) and served as Deputy Governor of the Bank of England and Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry.
In the wake of the 1953 workers’ uprising in East Germany, the playwright Bertolt Brecht dryly suggested that the government might find it easier to “dissolve the people and elect another.” It is a se… read more
It would not be surprising if, even a decade on, the IMF continues to be influenced by its failure to warn in good time that a global financial crisis – the worst in nearly 80 years – was a material r… read more
Central banks have been on a roller-coaster ride in the last decade, from heroes to zeroes and back again. Following the addition of a broad array of new supervisory functions over the past decade, th… read more
One of Prime Minister David Cameron’s four major demands of the EU is a national derogation from elements of the uniform rule book which the ECB is seeking to introduce in the eurozone to ensure a con… read more
In the first wave of post-2008 elections, in Europe and elsewhere, voters’ verdict on their governments – whether of the left or the right – was more or less identical: things went wrong on your watch… read more
Central bankers remain divided about when they should seek to prick asset bubbles, with some arguing that maintaining financial stability is too complex an objective. But we need our central bankers t… read more
Over the past two decades, countries around the world have recognized the importance of central banks' independence. In truth, however, there are many degrees of independence, and not all nominally in… read more
Can savers really expect the old normal in financial markets – positive long-term interest rates on government bonds – to return? There are two powerful reasons why it may be unreasonable to expect th… read more
Among the institutions regulating global financial markets, the Financial Markets Law Committee is not very prominent. But its mission – to identify and propose solutions to issues of legal uncertaint… read more
