The Banking Crisis: Causes, Consequences and Remedies

CEPS Policy Briefs

Posted: 26 Jan 2009 Last revised: 28 Jan 2009

See all articles by Paul De Grauwe

Paul De Grauwe

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research); London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Date Written: November 20, 2008

Abstract

Bubbles and crashes are an endemic feature of financial markets in capitalist countries. Thus, as a result of deregulation, the balance sheets of universal banks became fully exposed to these bubbles and crashes, undermining the stability of the banking system. The Basel approach to stabilise the banking system has as an implicit assumption that financial markets are efficient, allowing us to model the risks universal banks take and to compute the required capital ratios that will minimise this risk. I argue that this approach is unworkable because the risks that matter for universal banks are tail risks, associated with bubbles and crashes. These cannot be quantified. As a result, there is only one way out, and that is to return to narrow banking, a model that emerged after the previous large-scale banking crisis of the 1930s but that was discarded during the 1980s and 1990s under the influence of the efficient market paradigm.

Keywords: Macroeconomic Policy, Economic Policy

JEL Classification: B22, E6

Suggested Citation

De Grauwe, Paul and De Grauwe, Paul, The Banking Crisis: Causes, Consequences and Remedies (November 20, 2008). CEPS Policy Briefs, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1333135

Paul De Grauwe (Contact Author)

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research)

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) ( email )

Houghton Street
London, WC2A 2AE
United Kingdom

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

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