The financial crisis has brought financial stability to the forefront of economic policy debates. New institutions with the mission to pursue financial stability have sprung up, financial regulation has been reformed, and a major stress test of European banks is under way to assess the resilience of the financial system. But what is financial stability, and why does it matter? How do regulators pursue financial stability, and what can be done to make the financial system safer? Can financial instability be observed before it leads into crisis? We pursue these questions in the spirit that financial regulation is not merely a technical exercise. Rather, we want to bring out the way financial regulation shapes the economy and evaluate current practice and proposed alternatives with a view to the ethical and political values expressed in alternative regulatory regimes.

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Winter 2014/15, with Carsten Jung

Philosophy and Economics Programme, University of Bayreuth