Financial Stability, Systems and Regulation

Ever since the 2007–8 global financial crisis and its aftermath, Hyman Minsky’s theory has never been more relevant.

Throughout his career, Jan Kregel has called attention to Minsky’s contributions to understanding the evolution of financial systems, the development of financial fragility and instability, and designing the financial structure necessary to support the capital development of the economy. Building on Minsky, Kregel developed a framework to analyze how different financial structures develop financial fragility over time. Rather than characterizing financial systems as market-based or bank-based, Kregel argued that it is necessary to distinguish between the risks that are carried on the balance sheets of banks and other financial institutions. This volume, brought together by Felipe C. Rezende, highlights these major contributions from Kregel through a collection of his influential papers from various journals and conferences.

Kregel’s approach provides a strong theoretical background to understand the making and unfolding of the crisis and helps us to draw policy implications to improve financial stability, and suggest an alternative financial structure for a market economy. In this book, his knowledge is consolidated and the ideas he puts forward offer a path for future developments in economics which will be of great interest to those studying and researching in the fields of economics and finance.

Jan Kregel is Director of Research at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, USA. He is also Director of the Levy Institute Master’s Program in Economic Theory and Policy, and Head of the Institute’s Monetary Policy and Financial Structure program. In addition, he holds the position of Professor of Development Finance at Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia. In 2011, he was elected to the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, also known as the Lincean Academy, and he is a life fellow of the Royal Economic Society (UK) and an elected member of the Società Italiana degli Economisti.

Felipe C. Rezende is an Associate Professor of Economics and Finance, and Director of the finance program at Bard College, USA. He previously taught at Hobart and William Smith Colleges (2010–17) and the University of Missouri–Kansas City (2009) and is a regular columnist in American and Brazilian newspapers.