2024-25 CPE Money & Finance Seminar Series: Who Governs Finance?

Session 2: Central Banks – Governors of or Governed by Finance?

Monday, October 28, 2024

Commenting on crisis management during the long Great Financial Crisis, Perry Mehrling
quibbed: “Forget the G7, watch the C5”. Picking up on this theme, this seminar explores the role
of central banks in governing finance not only in the midst of financial crises, but also
continuously as guardians of financial stability. Remarkably, the shadow banking system, which
had largely been viewed as causal for the 2008 crisis, expanded rather than contracting under the
watch of central banks. When faced with new episodes of financial instability, central banks have
responded with more large-scale asset purchases and similar measures to support the financial
system. This raises the question whether central banks are governing finance, or whether,
instead, finance is forcing central banks to dance to their tune. This is not a new question, and
neither is it limited to the US, or even the circle of the C5 (Fed, Bank of England, ECB, Swiss
CB, Bank of Japan). By putting the recent episodes of the entanglement of central banks with
finance into historical perspective, we are hoping to shed new light on the forces that shape
money, banking, and finance more broadly.

Speakers:

Lev Menand
Columbia Law School
Columbia University

Stefano Ugolini
University of Toulouse

Link to Register