Macroprudential policies primarily use prudential tools to limit systemic risk and thereby minimize disruptions in the provision of key financial services that can have serious consequences for the economy by (i) dampening the buildup of financial imbalances; (ii) building defenses that contain the speed and sharpness of subsequent downswings and their effects on the economy; and (iii) identifying and addressing common exposures, risk concentrations, linkages and inter-dependencies that are sources of contagion and spillover risks that may jeopardize the functioning of the system as a whole2.
While the third objective of macroprudential policy [(iii) above] is concerned with the crosssectional dimension, the first two objectives [(i) and (ii) above] are concerned with the procyclicality issues.