The Future of Banking

全球金融危机是西方两代人以来最重要的经济事件。这对我们的经济学和金融学思维提出的挑战才刚刚开始被理解。我们目前的理论基础，有效市场和理性预期，已经被证明是不合适的。即使是行为金融学也很难揭示危机的发生地。这很重要，因为我们如何看待金融决定了我们如何对待监管机构和市场。这反过来又影响到金融系统履行其在借款人和贷款人之间进行中介和最佳管理相关风险的关键职能的能力。我们认为，在危机之前、期间和之后，由于对金融性质认识不足而导致的监管失败，业绩受到了损害，各国政府积极采取审慎和结构性监管举措应对危机，但我们认为，对根本问题的认识不足。太多的举措使银行成为过去的机构，而不是今天的运营方式。在这种情况下，本研究将解决的主要政策文件是银行业独立委员会（ICB）对英国银行业稳定性和竞争的研究，在美国（沃尔克规则）和欧盟（利卡宁高级别报告银行业分离）。[1]ICB未能认识到：（a）新的全能银行（例如汇丰银行拥有超过2000家实体）的复杂性所固有的信息问题，（B）声誉对银行很重要，因此竞争和稳定性可能并不总是相辅相成的，以及（c）如果在关键融资市场没有强大的基础设施，银行的稳定性就无法得到保证。不幸的是，自报告发表以来，银行出现的一系列治理失败证明了我们的担忧是正确的。我们的目标是进行三项独立的研究，以解决当前金融监管思想中的缺陷。首先，我们考虑是否有实证证据支持零售银行和投资银行在一个单一的公司合并或分离。第二，我们研究了金融部门的竞争和稳定之间的关系，包括个别公司的声誉的潜在影响。最后，我们将重新审视金融基础设施（包括监管环境、法律的和会计程序以及主要交易市场），并根据最近的经验和关键功能的效率考虑其适当性金融体系的执行。[1]有关文章，见国家研究所经济评论，第218、219和220期。

SUMMARYThe global financial crisis is the most important economic event in the West for two generations. The challenge this presents to our thinking in economics and finance is only just beginning to be understood. The foundations of much of our current theory, efficient markets and rational expectations, have been shown to be inappropriate. Even behavioural finance was poor in signalling the locus of crisis. This matters because how we think about finance determines how we approach regulating institutions and markets. This in turn impacts on the ability of the financial system to perform its key functions of intermediating between borrowers and lenders and best managing the associated risks. We contend that performance was undermined before, during and after the crisis due to failures of regulation rooted in an inadequate understanding of the nature of finance.Governments have been active in responding to the crisis with both prudential and structural regulatory initiatives but in our view do not show enough understanding of the underlying issues. Too many initiatives take banks to be the same institutions as in the past, rather than how they operate today. In this context, the main policy document which this study will address is the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB) study on stability and competition in the UK banking sector, which has counterparts in the US (Volcker Rule) and EU (Liikanen High Level report on banking separation).NIESR has repeatedly challenged the ICB approach as partial and incomplete.[1] The ICB fails to recognise: (a) the information problems inherent in the complexity of new universal banks (e.g. HSBC has over two thousand entities), (b) that reputation matters to banks and so competition and stability may not always be complements, and (c) bank stability cannot be assured without a robust infrastructure in key funding markets. Our concerns have sadly been vindicated by the stream of governance failures coming to light in banks since the report was published.We aim to undertake three separate studies which address the shortcomings in current thinking regarding financial regulation. First, we consider whether there is empirical evidence to support the combination or separation of retail banking and investment banking in a single firm. Second, we examine the relationship between competition and stability in the financial sector, including the potential impact of reputation of an individual firm. Finally, we will look anew at the infrastructure of finance (including the regulatory environment, legal and accounting procedures and key trading markets) and consider its appropriateness in the light of recent experience and the efficiency with which the key functions of the financial system are performed.[1] See National Institute Economic Reviews, issues 218,219 and 220 for articles.