The maintenance of financial stability is a key objective of monetary policy, but the record of regulators in achieving this has been lamentable in recent years. This failure has been matched by an equivalent inability to establish an appropriate theoretical basis for financial regulation. In this book, the authors demonstrate how to enhance the theory, modeling and practice of such regulation. The main determinant of financial instability is the default of financial institutions. The authors highlight the importance of the appropriate incorporation of default into macro-financial models and its interaction with liquidity. Besides covering the historical development and current stance of financial regulation, the book includes a number of policy-oriented chapters revealing how the authors' modeling approach can improve the process. This authoritative book will serve as a basis for future work on financial stability management for both academics and policy makers and provide guidance on how to undertake crisis prevention and resolution.

The achievement of financial stability is one of the most pressing issues today. This timely and innovative book provides an analytical framework to assess financial (in)stability as an equilibrium phenomenon compatible with the orderly functioning of a modern market economy. The authors expertly show how good regulatory policy can be implemented and that its effects on the real as well as the nominal side of the economy can be properly analyzed. The core of their approach is to take realistic account of the interaction between endogenous default, agent heterogeneity and money and liquidity, and suggest how a quantifiable metric of financial fragility could be developed. This insightful book will serve as a basis for future work on financial stability management for both academics and policy makers and provide guidance on how to undertake crisis prevention and resolution.

There are already many papers and books on the causes and course of the current financial crisis, but this is the first and, for the moment, only such book to focus on the regulatory response to it. There are two main attributes that a bank needs to remain in business during a period of turmoil, liquidity to enable it to pay its debts when due, and capital, to absorb losses. Both have been insufficient. Charles Goodhart describes what went wrong and what needs to be done, alongside discussions of deposit insurance, credit rating agencies, prompt corrective action, etc. Charles Goodhart is the senior British economist specialising in financial stability issues. As the turmoil began, continued and exploded into crisis, he has kept up a series of commentaries, all since September 2007. These have been brought together, plus some new and additional material, to provide the reader with an overview of what went wrong in the regulatory framework for the financial system, and what now needs to be done to put that right. This will be required reading for financial regulators, practitioners in banking and finance, academics and students of finance, and those just wanting to know what went wrong and what to do now.

There are already many papers and books on the causes and course of the current financial crisis, but this is the first and, for the moment, only such book to focus on the regulatory response to it. There are two main attributes that a bank needs to remain in business during a period of turmoil, liquidity to enable it to pay its debts when due, and capital, to absorb losses. Both have been insufficient. Charles Goodhart describes what went wrong and what needs to be done, alongside discussions of deposit insurance, credit rating agencies, prompt corrective action, etc. Charles Goodhart is the senior British economist specialising in financial stability issues. As the turmoil began, continued and exploded into crisis, he has kept up a series of commentaries, all since September 2007. These have been brought together, plus some new and additional material, to provide the reader with an overview of what went wrong in the regulatory framework for the financial system, and what now needs to be done to put that right. This will be required reading for financial regulators, practitioners in banking and finance, academics and students of finance, and those just wanting to know what went wrong and what to do now.

There are at least three requirements for an economy to maintain stable prices. Policy markers and opinion formers must understand that inflation brings no medium or long-term economic benefit; the causes of inflation -- monetary growth -must be also be understood; and there needs to be a stable and credible institutional structure that will deliver a sound monetary policy. This book brings together two classic IEA papers by Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman with a new work by Charles Goodhart who is a Bank of England Advisor and former member of the Monetary Policy Committee. In doing so, 'Money, Inflation and the Constitutional Position of the Central Bank' provides a thorough yet accessible text appropriate for anybody who wants to understand inflation and how it should be controlled. Friedman's paper, 'Unemployment Versus Inflation?' is a lucid explanation of why higher inflation does not lead to lower unemployment, and his 'The Counter-Revolution in Monetary Theory', the first Wincott lecture, explains why excess monetary growth is the only cause of sustained inflation. Goodhart's paper 'The Constitutional Position of the Central Bank' was the 32nd Wincott Memorial Lecture. It explains how the Institutional arrangements for central banks should be developed to deliver stable prices and, importantly, to influence inflation expectations. Professor Geoffrey Wood sets the historical perspective in his introduction and also links the work of Goodhart and Friedman to the current thinking of the new Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King.