Institutional Design For Financial Market Supervision

Countries aspire to have a competitive financial system that is consistent with financial stability, inspires public confidence, and has the capacity to meet the needs of users and to foster growth in the real economy. This paper, which has been written for the Handbook on Financial Regulation (Moloney, Ferran and Payne (eds) OUP, 2014) surveys the academic and policy debate on key issues that are relevant to the task of designing supervisory institutions to contribute to the achievement of these goals. The paper considers: the main supervisory models identified in the literature and in operation in practice in selected jurisdictions; the public character of supervision and the role of self-regulation; the role of the central bank in financial supervision; supervisory mandates and powers; supervisory accountability, governance and transparency; and supervisory costs and funding models. The paper shows that design choices can make a difference to supervisory and economic outcomes, but also that there is no single "right" or "wrong" institutional model for financial supervision, and that strong (and weak) financial supervision can come in a variety of packages.