Dr. Rosa María Lastra is Professor of International Financial and Monetary Law at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS), Queen Mary, University of London. She is a member of Monetary Committee of the International Law Association (MOCOMILA), a founding member of the European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee (ESFRC), an associate of the Financial Markets Group of the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an affiliated scholar of the Centre for the Study of Central Banks at New York University School of Law. She has served as a consultant to the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. From November 2008 to June 2009 she acted as Specialist Adviser to the European Union Committee [Sub-Committee A] of the House of Lords regarding its Inquiry into EU Financial Regulation and responses to the financial crisis.
Synopsis:
- Debate about systemic risk is ubiquitous in the aftermath of the financial crisis. However, the very definition of systemic risk still remains contentious; this complicates the search for adequate instruments to prevent and contain it.
- The purpose of this lecture is to cast some light on the understanding of systemic risk, by reviewing the transmission mechanisms, the notion of systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) and the concept of macro-prudential supervision.
- The lecture also considers the responses that national and European authorities, as well as international policy-makers and regulators, have designed in the pursuit of the goal of financial stability (in particular the creation of Councils for Financial Stability), to prevent and contain systemic risk.