Decades after the first adventure of Sherlock Holmes had been published in 1887, Edmond Locard eventually turned this fiction into reality when he issued a paper on the identification of tobacco by analysing ashes.20 Since those early days, science has been driving breakthroughs in the field of forensics at a furious pace. The possibilities created by DNA analysis are just one such example.
In much the same way, we need academia to help advance financial stability analysis and policy. When it comes to practical applications and policy advice, let me remind you of the words of the immortal Sherlock Holmes: “It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.