Na podlagi empiričnih raziskav je že dolgo znano, da imajo velike banke omejene ekonomije obsega, predstavljajo pa veliko sistemsko tveganje. Sedanja kriza, ki je izšla iz bančnega sektorja, je samo še dodatno potrdila, da je bančni sektor nujno potrebno regulirati. Prejšnjo sredo je bilo v Bruslju predstavljeno t.i. Liikanenovo poročilo – poročilo ekspertne skupine za reformo bančnega sistema v EU, ki jo je vodil guverner finske centralne banke Erkki Liikanen. Poročilo predlaga pravno ločitev med visokorizičnimi finančnimi naložbami bank (investicijske banke) od običajnih komercialnih poslov bank. Samo poročilo, predvsem pa odzivi nanjo iz bančnega lobija, pa kažejo, da pot učinkovire regulacije ne bo tako preprosta.

Michiel Bijlsma iz Bruegla je pripravil kratek povzetek poročila in osnovnih dilem:

Apart from endorsing other currently discussed points such as common bank supervision and the resolution schemes, one of its main findings is that ‘it is necessary to require legal separation of certain particularly risky financial activities from deposit-taking banks within a banking group’, which fits nicely with the Volcker rule in the US and the Vickers proposal in the UK. The main goals of legal separation are to limit a banking group’s incentives and ability to take excessive risks with insured deposits, to prevent the coverage of losses incurred in the trading entity by the funds of the deposit bank, and to reduce the interconnectedness between banks and the shadow banking system. The proposal argues that this would limit the stake of the taxpayer in the trading parts of banking groups, while making the socially most vital parts of banking groups safer and less connected to trading activities.

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From an economists’ point of view the question then becomes, should you prefer structural regulation (i.e. quantity regulation) or price regulation through higher capital requirements or high taxes for big banks. The discussion on whether to use quantity regulation or price regulation to address externalities goes back to a seminal paper in 1974 by Weitzman. He showed that uncertainty about compliance costs causes price and quantity controls to have different welfare implications. Price controls – in the form of taxes – fix the marginal cost of compliance and lead to uncertain levels of compliance, whereas quantity controls – in the form of minimum capital requirements – fix the level of compliance but result in uncertain marginal costs. The relative efficiency of price regulation versus quantity regulation now depends on the relative slopes of the marginal benefit and marginal cost curves. If the marginal cost curve is steeper than the marginal benefit curve, price regulation will be more efficient, whereas if the marginal benefit curve is steeper, quantity regulation will be more efficient. The fact that large banks create substantial systemic risk, while the empirical literature shows for these banks that economies of scale are limited, then suggest that some form of structural regulation may be warranted.

Celotno Liikanenovo poročilo lahko najdete na tej povezavi.