This was made possible only in the case of Korea which has helped the country recover from the crisis and was able to bring down interest rate much faster than other crisis countries. The case of Indonesia further led the IMF to reform towards more careful and focused policy prescription. The abrupt close-down of Indonesian commercial banks under the IMF program added to a sense of panic, which led to a broad-based bank run. Moreover, the conditionalities did not focus on the more critical macroeconomic adjustments which were directly related to the problems of the crisis but also included unrelated changes such as requirement to abolish import restrictions on all new and used ships. Secondly, policymakers must be ready to take away the punch bowl. In the past we used to talk about monetary policy being on the alert to take away the punch bowl. This crisis has proven that public policy in general need to observe this principle as well. Fiscal policy must guard against falling into the populist trap. Financial supervisors also need to be vigilant and watch out for signs of excessive credit creation, and act pre-emptively for the cost of cleaning up the crisis far outweigh the brief euphoria and exuberance of the moment. Central bank must maintain independence and credibility in order to voice and conduct appropriate policies that may not be favored politically.
Pablo Hernández de Cos: Graduation Ceremony - Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros Speech by Mr Pablo Hernández de Cos, Governor of the Bank of Spain and Chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, at the Class 2020/2021 graduation ceremony, Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros (CEMFI), 1 July 2021. * * * Good afternoon class of 2021. Good afternoon dear colleagues and friends. It is a pleasure for me to participate in this graduation ceremony together with Juan José Fernández Muñoz, Coordinator of Studies and Programs of Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo, Samuel Bentolila, Director of the Master’s Programme, and Rafael Repullo, Director of CEMFI. I would especially like to thank Juan José Fernández Muñoz for being here today. The partnership with Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo, dating back to 2006, has been instrumental in improving our ability to attract excellent students and the quality of our graduate programme, and I am very grateful for this. The Master’s programme of the class graduating today was severely disrupted by the COVID19 pandemic. In early March 2020, just before the end of the second term of the programme, all teaching activities were moved online. During the summer of 2020 CEMFI made all the necessary investments and established a set of safety protocols to be able to go back to onsite teaching. These efforts paid off handsomely. Most courses this year were taught on-site, with a minimal incidence of COVID-19 and, fortunately, no serious cases at all.