Financial Stability Policy in the Euro Zone: The Political Economy of National Banking Regulation in an Integrating Monetary Union

Banking regulation is an economically powerful and politically very salient instrument of economic policy. After all, the financial crisis had derived from an over-leveraged banking system obviating the importance of banking regulation for the functioning of regulatory capitalism. Gundbert Scherf's research focuses on this nexus between integrated banking, supranational monetary policy and national banking regulation. He finds that national level differences in financial systems and related institutions explain and drive variation in regulatory financial stability policy across countries. Applying game-theoretical rigor to political economy interactions, Gundbert Scherf develops a model of time-inconsistent supervisory policy as well as international competition in regulatory standards. He shows how these patterns lead to financial instability, by analyzing the original members of the Euro Zone as well as the US and the UK in the years leading up to the financial crisis of 2007/8.