Abstract 

Despite the policy failures that enabled and even encouraged the buildup of risk in the banking system and ultimately led to the global financial crisis of 2007-2009, “reformed” rules remain poorly designed, the system remains much too fragile and dangerous, and bailouts persist. In resisting beneficial reforms, bank lobbies make false, misleading, and self-serving arguments. The weak rules and poor enforcement reflect the symbiosis of bankers with politicians, the media, lawyers, and economists. They encourage and enable a culture of recklessness, rule infringements, and even criminal behavior, with impunity. The power of bankers to distort rules and political discourse threatens our democracies.

Link to the book.

Practicalities

This event will be a hybrid event. The seminar will take place in Roeterseiland campus (REC) building M, room number M0.02, and will also be streamed online via Zoom.  

About the speaker 

Anat Admati is the George G.C. Parker Professor of Finance and Economics at Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and faculty director of the Corporations and Society Initiative and the Program on Capitalism and Democracy. Professor Admati is an economist with broad cross-disciplinary interests in the interactions between business, law and policy, and an advocate for better governance and accountability in the private sector and in government.

About ACLE

The Amsterdam Center for Law and Economics (ACLE) is a joint initiative of the Faculty of Economics and Business and the Faculty of Law at the University of Amsterdam. The objective of the ACLE is to promote high-quality interdisciplinary research at the intersection between law and economics.

We gratefully acknowledge the generous funding by the Amsterdam University Fund for this seminar.