BIS Consultative Council for the Americas conference on "Systemic risk, bank behaviour and regulation over the business cycle"

On 17-18 March 2010 the BIS held a conference on "Systemic risk, bank behaviour and regulation over the business cycle". This was the first conference held under the auspices of the BIS Consultative Council for the Americas (CCA). It brought together researchers from the central banking community in the region and distinguished academics and was hosted by the Central Bank of Argentina in Buenos Aires.

A Scientific Committee led by Stephen G Cecchetti, and comprising CCA central bank heads of research selected papers on three broad topics: 1) pro-cyclicality; 2) systemic risk; and 3) markets and performance. Among the issues raised within these topics were: (i) To what extent is the financial systemprocyclical? Do we always care about procyclicality, or do we only care about it when it leads to severe outcomes? What happens to monetary policy if you use regulatory tools to reduce real-financial feedback? (ii) How can we measure systemic risk (eg need to focus on tails, and take into account firesale and network externalities)? What is the optimal level of systemic risk? Can we use regulatory tools to reduce it? Relationship between openness and the nature of risk? Lessons learned from efforts to cushion the impact of systemic events after the fact? (iii) Is there diversification when you need it? What can we do about the fact that real and financial integration makes countries susceptible to each other's shocks, increasing correlations?

The members of the Scientific Committee were: Jorge Carrera (Central Bank of Argentina), Carlos Hamilton Araujo (Central Bank of Brazil), Timothy Lane (Bank of Canada), Pablo Garcia (Central Bank of Chile), Manuel Ramos-Francia (Bank of Mexico), Thomas Connors and Michael Leahy (US Federal Reserve Bank) and Stephen G. Cecchetti (BIS Economic Adviser and Head of the Monetary and Economic Department. Camilo Tovar (Senior Economist at the BIS Representative Office for the Americas) organised the meeting in collaboration with Ramon Moreno (Head of Emerging Markets at the BIS) in Basel. Discussants included central bank researchers from the region, the ECB and well-known academics from MIT, University of Oxford, and Duke University.

Conference agenda with papers and presentations from the conference

List of participants