"The Politics of Financial Regulatory Reform: Partisanship and the Privatization of Risk"

Westrup, Jonathan. (2005) "The Politics of Financial Regulatory Reform: Partisanship and the Privatization of Risk". In: UNSPECIFIED, Austin, Texas. (Unpublished)

	Plain Text Download (83Kb)
	Microsoft Word Download (127Kb)

Abstract

[From the Introduction]. Britain and Germany, two of the European Union’s largest economies, have made a radical change to their financial regulatory institutions over the past eight years. Both states have created a new single financial regulator, replacing the functional separation of responsibility between banking, securities and insurance regulators. However, the paper argues that the change was more fundamental than just a functional redesign of regulatory responsibilities but involved the replacement of a corporatist regime characterized by a high level of self-regulation, to one controlled by a new, powerful state actor and a regime that is clearly accountable to the government and parliament. Given the critical role that a financial regulator plays in a modern political economy, these new regimes can be regarded as indicating a significant change in the relationship between the two states and their financial markets. The purpose of this paper is to investigate why such a significant change has occurred in two diverse political economies.

Actions (login required)