Macroprudential Policy : Taming the wild gyrations of credit flows, debt stocks and asset prices

The financial crisis of 2008 is probably the single most important economic event in post-war history. Macroprudential policy is the response to that crisis – a determined attempt to stabilize the financial system. This book explains why it is necessary, who will be responsible for executing this responsibility and how they will go about doing it.

Financial crises have plagued economies around the globe for centuries, yet no satisfactory policy solution has been found to significantly reduce the likelihood and severity of these devastating events. Macroprudential policy, the intellectual response to
financial crisis, may provide the solution to this recurrent problem. However, what this means in practice is subject to disagreement - with radicals proposing measures to stablise the flow of credit to households and companies, and others suggesting a more conservative approach focused on the banks. Macroprudential Policy is the first book to provide a coherent and comprehensive coverage of the issues of why, when and how policymakers should intervene.

Barwell brings his considerable experience of working in both a cenral bank and the financial sector to bear in examining the practical justification for the new regime, the institutions of macroprudential policy, the instruments at policymakers'' disposal, and a discussion of how policymakers will go about discharging their responsibilities. The book also reviews the economic foundations of macroprudential policy. Conventional macroeconomics is based on assumptions that may work for the analysis of price stability and the conduct of monetary policy, but which more or less rules out the possibility of financial crises. This book introduces an alternative macroeconomics where crises can flourish, identifying the market failures which justify interventions to stabilize the system.