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D'Arista and Griffith‐Jones stress the seeming contradiction that the more liberalized the financial system is, the greater the need for more effective regulation, to avoid massive and costly crises. The chapter develops the two basic principles on which such future financial regulation should be based. The first principle is counter‐cyclicality. It aims at correcting the main manifestation of market failures in banking and financial markets: their boom‐bust nature. The key idea is that (forward‐looking) provisions and/or capital required should increase as risks are incurred, that is when loans grow more, and fall when loans expand less. The application of this principle in Spain and Portugal shows that it is possible to design simple rules to make it effective.

This chapter begins mapping out a path towards financial regulatory reform. Using the belief that the financial crisis is the result of a lack of effective regulation, the chapter examines several themes that have emerged: one is more effective regulation, second is an increase in transparency in the financial system, and a final one is the formation of a financial regulatory structure that will be capable of achieving these goals. The chapter tackles the severity of the crisis, citing the International Monetary Fund’s estimate of total near-term global losses on U.S. credit-related debt to be $2.7 trillion. The origin of this financial crisis is believed to have its foundations in risk, particularly the mispricing of risk. The chapter then states that a rapid response is important to sustaining economic recovery, and the harmonization of economies is important when seeking to resolve financial crises.

When buying stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and other securities, individuals seeking advice typically turn to broker-dealers or investment advisers before they invest. In many cases, brokers and advisers perform similar functions but they are regulated differently under laws enacted during the Great Depression. Regulators are considering ways to harmonize the regulation of these professionals, but harmonization is fraught with difficulties. This chapter discusses the debate over harmonization and explains how the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the courts, and Congress have responded. The chapter concludes with insights into considerations that will likely determine how the harmonization debate will be resolved.

This chapter focuses on the implications of the ethnography for current debates about financial regulatory reform. It pulls forth the real-world examples presented in this book together to consider their implications for the limits of existing ways of thinking about regulation and governance, and the possibilities for imagining alternatives. This chapter shows how the techniques of private regulatory governance provide a little-noticed, less-glamorous, but ultimately highly effective and even potentially transformative alternative to most other current proposals to rebuild the “architecture” of global financial regulation. The ultimate goal is to shift the mood of crisis surrounding the regulation of the global financial system away from simple stories of good and bad apples, of villains and victims, cops and robbers, toward a more sophisticated public understanding of the techniques that make up private and public forms of governance.