Nicolas Véron

An Assessment of Financial Reform - So Far

I contributed this article to a forthcoming book co-edited by Barry Eichengreen (UC Berkeley) and Bokyeong Park (KIEP). The piece attempts to assess the financial reform induced by the crisis so far, and to see the forest for the trees - a challenging task given the multiplicity of reform initiatives and the unfinished nature of most of them. 

Click here for the version published in the PIIE Working Paper series. 

Click here for the version published in the Bruegel Working Paper series. 

Rating Agencies and Sovereign Credit Risk Assessment

Bruegel just published this Policy Contribution co-authored with Guntram Wolff, at the request of the European Parliament. Building on my earlier piece on credit rating agencies, we examine a series of policy questions specifically related to sovereign credit ratings and their role in financial policy. 

Click here to download the piece in case the above link does not work. The European Parliament has also published it on its own website, with the same text in a different format

Policy Contribution on Credit Rating Agencies

This policy contribution was simultaneously published by Bruegel and published by the Peterson Institute. In it, I summarize the European debate on credit rating agencies, the problems they pose and some possible solutions. I warn against the unintended consequences of ill-designed regulation, and suggest that the most important issue in this debate is to improve the quality and scope of issuers' public disclosures about their financial risk factors. 

US Senate Testimony: the European Debt and Financial Crisis

On 22 September, I was a witness at a hearing of the Subcommittee on Security and International Trade and Finance of the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. My written statement is accessible here, and a webcast of the entire hearing including my oral testimony and questions is here. 

Click here for the publication in Bruegel's Policy Contribution series. 

Click here for the publication on the Peterson Institute's website. 

Keeping the Promise of Global Accounting Standards

This is published with much delay, due to technical problems with TypePad. In July Bruegel and the Peterson Institute published my policy brief on the future of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), in which I make policy recommendations as regards both the governance of the IFRS Foundation and the implementation of the standards in individual jurisdictions. 

Click here for the Bruegel version; 

Click here for the PIIE version. 

Reform of the IFRS Foundation - Another Public Consultation

Once again, I responded to a public consultation on how to reform the governance of the IFRS Foundation, which hosts the International Accounting Standards Board - this time in response to a consultative report of the Foundation's Monitoring Board, currently composed of a limited number of public authorities. This follow my response last month to another consultation, by the Foundation's own Trustees.

It is a somewhat specialized debate, but if you have a taste for the politics of accounting you will certainly enjoy it.

My letter was posted by the Monitoring Board on the IOSCO website. Click here for a PDF version.

May update: Bruegel also published an adapted version in its Policy Contribution series.

Too Big To Fail: The Transatlantic Debate

 

The Peterson Institute and Bruegel published this Working Paper, in which Morris Goldstein and I analyze historical and structural differences between the US and EU, which help explain the differences in policy debates and decisions on the "too-big-to-fail" problem which lies at the core of current prudential regulatory debates.

Click here for the PIIE version in PDF if the above link does not work, and click here for the Bruegel version as published in early February.

Update: Morris and I later published a summary of the argument for Vox and NRC Handelsblad.  

EU Financial Regulatory Reform: A Status Report

 
Bruegel just published the text of a paper I presented at the Brookings Institution last week, as part of a discussion co-sponsored by the Heinrich-Böll Foundation on current financial policy challenges. In this piece, I analyze the differences in the timing of the regulatory response on both sides of the Atlantic, and briefly outline challenges ahead for the EU.

Click here to read the paper, or click here to upload it from Bruegel's website.

The paper was originally published by Brookings and also later by the Peterson Institute.

Not All Financial Regulation Is Global

Bruegel today published a policy brief by Stéphane Rottier (Adviser at the National Bank of Belgium) and myself, in which we look at how the crisis has changed the conditions of the global financial regulatory debate.

We identify key new trends and make corresponding recommendations to global leaders, with an emphasis on the subsidiarity principle and on keeping capital markets globally integrated.

To support the analysis we simultaneously produced a policy contribution which was also published today by Bruegel.

Update: the paper was later published, with a few improvements, by the Peterson Institute. 

IFRS Governance Reform - Letter to the IASC Foundation

Last week Bruegel published my response to a consultation by the IASC Foundation, the body that oversees the setting of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), on reform of its governance arrangements. In my response, I call for more ambition in making the Foundation accountable to its ultimate stakeholdersin the global investment community.

Click here to read the document if the above link does not function.