The Financial Crisis: Is regulation cure or cause?
In this briefing paper the ASI's regulation fellow Tim Ambler examines the populist demands for financial stability and security though increased regulation. The question the paper poses is whether existing regulation mitigated the 2008 financial crisis, had no impact, or exacerbated it. Answering this question is the key to deciding how we respond to the crisis. The paper's main conclusion is that improving regulation will not provide more than modest help in future. The important thing is that the Bank of England, the FSA and the credit agencies do the jobs they are supposed to do more effectively.