Bank Behaviour and Resilience

The Global Financial Crisis reminds us that banks are at the centre of the creation and destruction of national welfare. It serves to highlight that governments everywhere should regard what drives bank behaviour as special. Why were banking sectors in 'liberal' and 'coordinated' market economies with similar financial systems, operating under the same set of global rules, more resilient than others during the Global Financial Crisis? Building on the most important insights offered in institutional analysis and comparative public policy/political economy fields, this book offers an important insight to bank behaviour. It argues that divergence or convergence in bank behaviour within liberal and coordinated market economies cannot be understood from the type of national financial system, whether bank-based or capital markets-based; the type of policy network that dominates the national financial systems; or whether a state has a strong (proactive) or weak (reactive) capacity in financial services. Instead, it has been argued that whether banks adopt conservative or opportunistic behaviour makes sense by reference to interdependent top-down and bottom-up processes among structures, institutions and agents that condition the nature of bank behaviour and its outcomes. Based on an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective, and supported by solid empirical evidence, this original work will be of great interest to academics, graduate students, bankers, bank regulators, central bankers and policymakers with an interest in understanding bank behaviour and its outcomes.