Making Macroprudential Policy Work

Since the 2008 financial crisis, “macroprudential” policy has taken on much greater importance. These policies view the financial system as a whole and use regulation to lower the frequency and size of financial bubbles and limit the damage caused by their bursting. José Viñals, financial counsellor to IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, will present the IMF’s views on how nations can best design and operate macroprudential policies and how the IMF and other international bodies can assist in global coordination of these policies.

On September 16, the Economic Studies program at Brookings discussed the importance of macroprudential policy. Following Viñals, Donald Kohn, senior fellow in Economic Studies at Brookings, and Charles Taylor, deputy comptroller of the currency, presented their reactions to the IMF comments and discussed their own views of macroprudential policy. They were joined on a panel discussion afterwards with Erlend Nier, deputy director of the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department. Douglas Elliott, fellow in Economic Studies, served as moderator and also presented some views on the topic.