In the scenario where all credit is the economy is provided by banks (the blue line), the policymaker can use this tool in response to a 15pp increase in credit growth in the domestic economy over three years to reduce the probability of a crisis to well below 1% before the cost (in the form of lost output) becomes material. However, if 25% of credit in the economy is provided by market-based finance (red line), the policymaker struggles to reduce the probability of a crisis significantly below 2.5% as tightening the countercyclical capital buffer does not reduce the provision of market-based finance. Acting locally to address the risks of market-based finance  So how can we address risks emanating from global, market based finance? This is the subject of several panel discussions over the course of this conference, and indeed major international workstreams including of the FSB. So rather than pretend to have the answers, I will limit myself to two simple observations about how policymakers acting in their own best interest can help reduce these risks. The first is that by building strong domestic institutional frameworks and deepening domestic capital markets, recipients of global flows can reduce their susceptibility to volatility in those flows. Central bank credibility, a robust macroprudential framework, and fiscal stability all reduce the risk of a sudden stop, and liquid domestic capital markets make it easier to absorb larger inflows. As such they are prerequisites to being able to enjoy the benefits of open capital markets sustainably.
As Arthur Cecil Pigou (18771959) put it: “The social enthusiasm which revolts from the sordidness of mean streets and the joylessness of withered lives … is the beginning of economic science.” One may have chosen economics to find out how to become wealthy. Woody Allen said: “Economics is the study of money and why it is good.” Or one may have chosen economics to find out how society functions. Economics certainly offers a good starting point for this endeavour. Let me quote Alfred Marshall (1842-1924): “Economics is a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life; it examines that part of individual and social action which is most closely connected with the attainment and with the use of the material requisites of wellbeing.” Or one may have chosen economics because it is so hopelessly difficult and therefore enormously attractive to, and here I quote Robert Solow, “the overeducated in pursuit of the unknowable”. In the process of studying economics, every student sooner or later will have to decide whether do drop out or to continue. Most of the students opt for the practical application of what they have learned and quit university after their final exams. Some, however, will opt to stay on. In practice, this means to teach, to do research and increasingly to administrate since the universities have become large and slow-moving institutions. Let’s forget the latter and talk about the former. In teaching and in research lies most of the professional fulfilment of a university economist.