Macroprudential regulation is a set of economic and policy tools that aim to mitigate risk in the financial and banking systems. It was largely developed in response to the financial crisis of 2007-08, turning central banks into de facto financial policemen. Taming the Cycles of Finance traces the post-crisis rise of macroprudential regulation and argues that, despite its original aims, it typically supports finance in times of crisis but fails to curb it in times of booms. Investigating how different macroprudential frameworks developed in the UK, the USA and the Eurozone, the book explains how central bank economists went about building early warning systems to identify fragilities in the financial system. It then shows how administrative and political constraints limited the effects of this shift, as central banks were wary of intervening in a discretionary manner and policymakers were opposed to measures to limit credit growth.

Winner, 2024 Choice Awards

‘By building a political-economic narrative that is empirically authoritative, well written, superimposed on successive events, and linked to policy responses in a world of big stakes and powerful interests, the author has made a welcome contribution. … Highly recommended.’

I. Walter Source: Choice

‘The book is a treasure trove of information about a major shift in regulatory policy that is often mentioned in the scholarly literature on central banking but rarely examined in any depth.’

Leah Rose Downey Source: Perspectives on Politics