Reluctant Regulators

Book excerpt: The 2007-2009 global financial crisis was predictable and avoidable, but American and British regulators chose not to intervene. They failed to implement their own policies because of an Anglo-American "regulatory culture" of non-intervention that dominated financial regulation worldwide. Hong Kong--the international financial center of an increasingly prosperous China--defied world opinion and made stability its priority. This policy ensured Hong Kong's robust performance during the last 15 years, and it made possible Hong Kong's impressive contributions to financing China's economic take-off and to the modernization of its financial institutions.Reluctant Regulatorsis a scathing indictment of regulatory inertia in the West. It provides original insights into the causes of financial crises and pays special attention to China's attempts at reform and Hong Kong's place in China's financial modernization. Leo F. Goodstadtwas chief policy adviser to the Hong Kong Government as head of its Central Policy Unit (1989-1997) and has had an extensive consultancy practice in Asian banking. He has written widely on the global financial crisis and on China's economic development.