سیاستمداران و وحدت نظارت مالی در خارج از بانک مرکزی : چرا آنها این کار را انجام می دهند؟

An increasing number of countries show a trend towards a certain degree of consolidation of powers in financial supervision, which has resulted in the establishment of unified regulators, that are different from the national central banks. By contrast a high involvement of the central bank in supervision seems to be correlated with a multi-authorities regime (central bank fragmentation effect). This paper, using a simple application of a general common agency game, sheds light on which conditions the politicians prefer when implementing an unified sector supervision outside the central bank. From a theoretical point of view the quality of public sector governance plays a crucial role in determining the supervision unification. Focusing on the behaviour of the “good” policymaker (helping hand type), it will prefer a unified financial authority that is different from the central bank if the correspondent welfare gains-linked to at least one of the three effects: moral hazard, conflict of interest, bureaucracy—are considered higher respect to the information losses. The “bad” policymaker (grabbing hand type) will choose the single financial authority if the financial industry likes it, and the central bank is not a captured one. On the other hand, the paper tests the model, confirming the robustness of the institutional position of the central bank in explaining the recent trend in supervision consolidation, with an empirical analysis performed with ordered functions on an updated dataset.

Over the last few years the financial supervision landscape has been radically transformed. Many countries have made drastic changes to the architecture of financial supervision, and more are contemplating modifications. In the last 20 years (1986–2006) 94% of the countries included in our sample of 91 nations chose to reform their financial supervisory setting (Fig. 1). The current restructuring wave is making the supervisory regimes less uniform than in the past. In several cases the architecture still reflects the classic model, with separate agencies for banking, securities and insurance supervision. However, an increasing number of countries show a trend towards a certain degree of consolidation of powers, which in several cases has resulted in the establishment of unified regulators, that are different from the national central banks.1 Other countries are contemplating further modifications. Full-size image (22 K) Fig. 1. Financial supervisory regimes: number of reforms per year (1986–2006). Figure options How can this supervision consolidation trend outside the central banks be explained? Firstly it is necessary to point out that the quest for the optimal level of financial supervision unification cannot be pursued through a traditional cost–benefit analysis. If one proposes to compare alternative models from a social welfare standpoint, one realises that each of them offers expected benefits but also expected risks, and the final outcome is actually undetermined. In general, different arguments for consolidation of supervision can be identified. However, there are also several arguments against unification, whose cons systematically mirror the pros. Different review essays (Abrams and Taylor, 2002, Cihak and Podpiera, 2007a and Cihak and Podpiera, 2007b) have demonstrated that there are not strong theoretical arguments in favour of any particular architecture of financial supervision, given that it is possible to provide advantages and disadvantages of each model. Therefore, if the main driver of the supervisory reform cannot be the classic social welfare perspective, it is necessary to explore alternative views. Recent studies have tried to shed light on the determinants of the shape of the financial supervision, focusing on the policymakers’ point of view. In particular, when the policymakers implement a consolidation process, they seem to be influenced by the supervisory position of the central bank. Barth et al. (2002), Arnone and Gambini (2007) and Cihak and Podpiera (2007a) claim that the key issues for supervision are (1) whether there should be one or multiple supervisory authorities and (2) whether and how the central bank should be involved in supervision. More importantly, the two crucial features of a supervisory regime seem to be related. The descriptive analysis (Masciandaro, 2004) signals an intriguing result: the national choices on how many agencies must be involved in supervision is strictly dependent on the existing institutional position of the central bank. The degree of unification seems to be inversely related to the central bank involvement in supervision. The trade-off – and the consequent so called central bank fragmentation effect – was confirmed first by an analysis of the reforms in the supervisory regimes (Masciandaro, 2006) and then by going more deeply into the economics of the central bank fragmentation effect (Masciandaro, 2007). The central bank fragmentation effect was explained as a particular case of path dependence: every policymaker, in choosing the level of financial supervision consolidation, is influenced by the characteristics that already exist in terms of the central bank position. The policymaker's choices are viewed as a sequential process in which the institutional position of the central bank matters. Notwithstanding the evidence, at least two crucial questions are still unanswered. First of all – from a theoretical point of view – in the path dependence approach the policymaker is a homogeneous agent. But if we take into account the fact that in the real world the policymakers can be heterogeneous, with different objective functions, can the central bank fragmentation effect still be explained? Secondly – from an empirical point of view – using the same approach the central bank involvement in supervision is considered an independent variable: the policymaker, given the central bank position, determines the degree of financial supervision unification. It remains uncertain whether the central bank involvement in supervision is only an imperfect – and potentially endogenous – proxy of other features in the central banking design that influences the policymakers. Therefore the aim of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, we offer a theoretical framework which sheds light on the role of central bank involvement as a potential determinant of the supervision architecture, taking into account the existence of different types of policymakers. On the other hand, the paper tests the model, investigating the robustness of the role of the central bank in explaining the recent trend in supervision consolidation, with an empirical analysis performed with ordered functions on an updated dataset. The paper is organised as follows. Section 2 describes the theoretical setup. In Sections 3 and 4 we estimate the model, describing the dependent variable and the indicators used to disentangle the role of central bank position among the different potential drivers of the supervision reforms. Section 5 discusses the policy implications and put forwards some conclusions.

The evolution of financial supervision architecture depends on the political cost–benefit analysis. This paper discusses under which conditions the politicians prefer to implement an unified sector supervision outside the central bank. What are the policy implications of our analysis? In general terms the quality of public sector governance plays a crucial role in determining the supervision unification. Focusing on the behaviour of the “good” policymaker (HH type), it will prefer a unified financial authority that is different from the central bank if the correspondent welfare gains-linked to at least one of the three effects: moral hazard, conflict of interest and bureaucracy—are considered high. The “bad” policymaker (GH type) will choose the single financial authority if the financial industry likes it, and the central bank is not a captured one. At national level these rules of thumb can explain both the emerging trend towards the single financial authorities, and the (so far few) cases of supervisory consolidation in favour of the central banks. Let us consider for example the three European cases in which the reforms of the supervision architecture increased – Ireland and the Netherlands – or could increase – Italy – the power of the national central bank. Ireland, the Netherlands and Italy are members of the Economic and Monetary Union, and their central banks no longer have the full responsibility for national monetary policies. Therefore we can interpret these reforms as cases in which HH policymakers can increase the central bank role in supervision, given that the risks of moral hazard, conflict of interest risks, bureaucratic overpower are likely to be low, while the reputation gains are likely to be high. Alternatively, we can study each of these reforms as possible cases of GH policymakers that implement the supervision regime favoured by the financial industry. In general, disentangling the two interpretations in specific country cases can be a welcome extension of the research agenda. At European level our model predicts that the establishment of a single financial authority is less likely to occur with the presence of a European central bank deeply involved in supervision. Conversely, the less the European Central Bank is involved in the financial supervision architecture, the more likely the establishment of a European Single Financial Authority will be.