Gerard Caprio

Photo of Gerard Caprio

William Brough Professor of Economics, Emeritus

413-597-2465

Areas of Expertise

  • Financial regulation and financial crises around the world
  • Financial history
  • Economic development

Areas of Expertise

Financial regulation and financial crises around the world, financial history, economic development

Books

Guardians of Finance

The Guardians of Finance: Making Regulators Work for Us, MIT Press, 2012, (with James Barth and Ross Levine). Honorable Mention, 2012 Prose Awards, Association of American Publishers. Review here.

“There have been plenty of books on the financial crisis. But this one is different. While acknowledging that private financiers did plenty of damage, the authors shine the spotlight on regulators across the world. They argue that the crisis did not just happen to policymakers, it happened because of them, and offer careful and well-reasoned arguments to support their case. Guardians of Finance should be read by everyone interested in the future of free enterprise.”  Raghuram G. Rajan, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business

“This book will become a classic for those who want to learn what was behind the global financial crisis — not just what went wrong, but why current reforms won’t work. Most important, it offers guidelines to prevent the next crisis by forcing regulators, the guardians of finance, to work for the public interest rather than for narrow elites.”  Nouriel Roubini, Co-Founder and Chairman, Roubini Global Economics

Williams Thinking Talk on the Guardians of Finance

Op-ed on the Euro Crisis

Rethinking Bank Regulation: Till Angels Govern, Cambridge University Press 2006 (with James Barth and Ross Levine).

Review of Rethinking Bank Regulation: Till Angels Govern

Financial Crises: Lessons from the Past, Preparation for the Future, The Brookings Institution, 2005 (edited with James A. Hanson and Robert Litan).

Finance for Growth: Policy Choices in a Volatile World, Oxford University Press, May 2001 (with Patrick Honohan).

Financial Liberalization: How Far, How Fast? Cambridge University Press, 2001 (edited with Patrick Honohan and Joseph Stiglitz)

Reforming Financial Systems: Historical Implications for Policy , Cambridge University Press (edited with Dimitri Vittas).

Financial Reform: Theory and Experience ,Cambridge University Press, 1994 (with Izak Atiyas, James Hanson, et al.).

Building Sound Finance in Transitional Economies , International Monetary Fund, 1994 (edited with David Folkerts-Landau and Timothy Lane).

Monetary Policy Instruments for Developing Countries , World Bank Press, 1991 (edited with Patrick Honohan).

Papers

Assessing the FSAP: Quality, Relevance, and Value Added,” Background Paper for Evaluation of Financial Surveillance, BP/18-02/02, 2018

“Financial Regulation for Economic Development,” with James Barth, in Thorsten Beck and Ross Levine, eds., Handbook of Finance and Economic Development, Edward Elgar Press, 2018.

Payday Lending: Does Regulation Depend on Which Party Holds Power,” with James Barth and Moutusi Sau, Milken Institute Center for Financial Markets, Viewpoints, October 2015.

Mis-Diagnosis: Incomplete Cures of Financial Regulatory Failures,” with Ross Levine and James Barth, paper presented at the Western Economic Association meetings, June 2014.

“Financial Regulation After the Crisis: How Did We Get Here, and How Do We Get Out,” Paper prepared for the SF Fed Asia Economic Policy Conference, 2013 and London School of Economics Financial Markets Group Special Paper 226, November 2013.

Bank Regulation and Supervision in 180 Countries from 1999 to 2011,” with James Barth and Ross Levine, NBER Working Paper 18733, January 2013. Data are available at Ross Levine’s web page.

The Evolution and Impact of Bank Regulations,” with James Barth and Ross Levine, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 6288, December 2012.

“Financial Sector Surveillance in the Country Dialogue,” paper prepared for the Independent Evaluation Office of the International Monetary Fund, May 2011.

Macro Financial Determinants of the Great Financial Crisis: Implications for Financial Regulation,” with Vincenzo D’ApiceGiovanni Ferri, and Giovanni Walter Puopolo, forthcoming, Journal of Banking and Finance.

The 2007 Meltdown in Structured Securitization: Searching for Lessons not Scapegoats,” with Asli Demirguc-Kunt and Edward Kane, World Bank Research Observer, 2010.

Financial Regulation in a Changing World: Lessons from the Recent Crisis,” Paper prepared for the VII Colloquium on “Financial Collapse: How are the Biggest Nations and Organizations Managing the Crisis?”, Jointly organized by the  Associazione Luiss-Guido Carli and Fondazione Cesifin “Alberto Predieri” in collaboration with the editors of the Journal of Financial Stability, October 2, 2009 – Ravenna.

“Safe and Sound Banking: A Role for Countercyclical Regulatory Requirements?,” Discussion Paper, William College, and Institute for International Integration Studies, Trinity College, December 2009.

“Subprime Finance: Yes, We Still Are In Kansas,” in Time for a Visible Hand; the case for better regulation in financial markets‘, Joseph Stiglitz, Stephany Griffith-Jones and Jose Antonio Ocampo (eds), Oxford University Press, 2010.

Banking Crises,” with Patrick Honohan, in Allan Berger, Philip Molyneux, and John Wilson, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Banking, Oxford University Press, 2009.

Reassessing the Rationale and Practice of Bank Regulation and Supervision around the Globe After Basel II,” with James Barth and Ross Levine, Current Developments in Monetary and Financial Law, Volume 5, 2008.

“Comparative International Characteristics of Banking,” with James Barth, Ross Levine, and Dan Nolle, Bank of England conference proceedings, 2007.

“Changing Bank Regulation: For Better or For Worse,” with James Barth and Ross Levine, Comparative Economic Studies, Summer 2008.

China’s Financial System: The Perils of Riding the Wave,” with James Barth, Milken Review, Volume 9, Number 3, Third Quarter, 2007.

“The Great Innumeracy Epidemic,” The Financial Regulator, Volume 11, No. 4, March 2007.

Governance and Bank Valuation,” with Luc Laeven and Ross Levine, Journal of Financial Intermediation, Volume 16, No. 4, October 2007.

“The Microeconomic Effects of Different Approaches to Bank Supervision,” forthcoming in Stephen Haber, ed., 2006 (with James Barth and Ross Levine).

“Bank Regulation: What Really Works,” Milken Review, September, 2005, with James Barth and Ross Levine.

“Bank Regulation and Supervision: What Works Best,” Journal of Financial Intermediation, Vol. 12, April, 2004, 205-248 (with Ross Levine and James Barth).

“Can the Unsophisticated Market Provide Discipline,” in C. Borio, W. Hunter, G. Kaufman and Kostas Tsatsaronis, editors, Market Discipline: The Evidence across Countries and Industries, 2004, MIT Press (with Patrick Honohan).

“Bank Regulation and Supervision: A New Database,” in Robert Litan and Richard Herring, eds., Brookings-Wharton Papers on Financial Services, 2001 (with James Barth and Ross Levine).

“Financial Fragility and Mexico’s 1994 Peso Crisis: An Event-Window Analysis of Market Valuation Effects,” Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, August 2000 (with Berry Wilson).

“Does Financial Reform Raise or Reduce Savings,” Review of Economics and Statistics, January, 2000 (with Oriana Bandiera, Patrick Honohan, and Fabio Schiantarelli).

“Mexico’s Financial Sector Crisis: Propagative Links to Devaluation,” The Economic Journal, January 2000 (with Berry Wilson and Tony Saunders).

Selected Work Experience

Director, Financial Sector Policy, The World Bank, 1998-2005; Head of Financial Sector Research, The World Bank, 1995-2003; Senior, Principal, and Lead Financial Economist, The World Bank, 1988-1995

Vice President and Head, Global Economics, JP Morgan, 1985-88

Visiting Adjunct Professor, George Washington University, 1980-1983.

Economist, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 1977-1985

Some Links

J.P. Morgan Chase: Still Another Regulatory Failure?

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/405/inside-job

Top Wonk