John Gieve: Learning from the financial crisis Speech by Sir John Gieve, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, 2008 Europe in the World Lecture Panel Discussion, at the European Business School, London, 19 November 2008. *  *  *  The years after sterling left the ERM were the most successful and stable in my lifetime. In early 2007, for example, inflation had not moved by more than a single percentage point away from target in the previous 10 years, the output of the economy had grown in every quarter since 1992 Q3 (Chart 1), unemployment had fallen by 5 percentage points from its peak in the early 1990s and living standards had steadily increased. Interest rates had been low and stable. However as we know now, that was the end of “the Great Stability”. The summer ushered in a period of extraordinary turmoil in Western financial markets which we are still trying to calm. And this year has seen the onset of recession not just in Europe but throughout the advanced economies. Despite the dramatic policy measures of the last months, the outlook for 2009 is bleak and the prospects beyond are uncertain. That move – in the space of only 12 months – from the policy maker’s dream of steady noninflationary growth to the biggest banking crisis since the outbreak of World War I and the onset of recession sets the questions for this evening. First, how did we get into this position? Second, what are the immediate challenges for policy?
But clearly that is not true of the global economy as whole. Of course we have a great deal of experience in the EU of establishing common rules and policies. We know it is a painstaking process among 27 countries. But on finance and the economy we need to go wider than the EU and wider than the G7 to engage the new economies which account for so much of world growth. That is why it was so important and welcome that the recent meeting in Washington was of the G20 rather than the G7. Alongside the IMF it is going to play a key role in global macroeconomic coordination. 2. Better ground rules for cross-border financial crises  The failure of Lehman Brothers has confirmed that cross-border failures of large and complex firms are just as damaging and difficult to manage as we had feared. We need to ensure that proper contingency plans are prepared between the authorities most concerned for failures not just within the EU, where a lot of work is in hand, but on a global basis. As a start I hope we can establish a robust and predictable framework of rules and conventions that ensure that home authorities will co-ordinate a cross-border response better. The Financial Stability Forum is working on these urgently. This is not easy. In particular emergencies there are often different national interests at stake and the sheer pressure of events can limit cross-border consultation.