It’s Broke, Let’s Fix It

This paper considers a wide range of financial reform issues, focusing on macroprudential regulation and on the recent reforms in the United States-although the principles apply globally. It emphasizes such issues as the needs for a systemic risk regulator and an orderly resolution mechanism for systemically important financial institutions, the risks posed by proprietary trading and skewed compensation incentives, and the design of new capital and liquidity requirements for banks. Throughout, an attempt is made to relate concrete regulatory proposals to the abstract principles that should govern financial regulation.