By Dani Rodrik
CAMBRIDGE – The sub-prime mortgage crisis has demonstrated once again how hard it is to tame finance, an industry that is both the lifeline of modern economies and their gravest threat. While this is not news to emerging markets, which have experienced many financial crises in the last quarter-century, a half-century of financial stability lulled advanced economies into complacency.
That stability reflected a simple quid pro quo: regulation in exchange for freedom to operate. Governments brought commercial banks under prudential regulation in exchange for public provision of deposit insurance and lender-of-last-resort functions. Equity markets were subjected to disclosure and transparency requirements.
