As an introduction to this FSR, we are extremely thankful to the roundtable participants that have accepted my invitation: •  A long-standing member of the Federal Reserve board: Governor Tarullo, thank you. It’s a privilege to welcome you today given your active participation and role in setting international financial regulation;  •  A Governor of one of the most advanced central bank in the area of macroprudential policy in Asia: Tae Soo Kang, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Korea, in charge of Financial Stability. •  A very active ambassador for macroprudential policy: José Viñals, Financial counselor and Director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department of the IMF. •  A distinguished expert on the financial sector worldwide and its regulation: Douglas Elliott from the Brookings Institution. Thank you all for being with us today. As you know, for each issue of our FSR, we always try to pick topics that are both analytically complex and relevant to current policy-making. This is clearly the case with macroprudential policies. Indeed, macroprudential policy is a critical dimension of the public policy response to the crises we have experienced since 2008 and has figured prominently in the lessons we have drawn from them. Let me mention three of these lessons. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  •  First, the oversight of individual components of the financial system is not enough to preserve financial stability. Having robust financial institutions is a prerequisite for ensuring financial stability but it is not in itself sufficient.
Macroprudential policy can also prevent the build-up of asset bubbles in specific sectors in a context of low interest rates. This complementarity should not however jeopardise the independence of central bank monetary policy decision-making. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  (ii)  Second, the optimal framework must promote consultation with fiscal authorities in order to ensure the full effectiveness of macroprudential policy measures that are often designed as Pigouvian Taxes generating resource transfers. This requires cooperation and information-sharing among the authorities involved in macroprudential policy decisions. Such as many countries have already adopted, a collegiate macroprudential authority, with a clear division of responsibility between central banks, the ministry of finance, market authorities, and banking supervisors, can ensure this cooperation. I will not dwell further on these topical issues, which am sure will give rise to fascinating discussions. It is my hope that we can collectively contribute to enlighten this policy debate. Let me now give the floor to our panellists. I suggest that we start with Governor Daniel Tarullo, who will give us the vision of the United States on macroprudential issues. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3