Global Financial Crisis Meeting, New York City 2008

The actual global financial crisis poses key challenges for policy-makers and regulators worldwide. How can financial and banking markets be saved, as well as reinvigorated, without putting excessive burden on taxpayers? How can negative impacts on the real economy be minimized? Most importantly, from a forward-looking perspective, how can regulation be reformed to reduce risks of future crises, while encouraging a financial sector that serves the real economy?

In particular, how can incentives be modified to reduce excessive risk-taking, how can excessive leverage best be controlled in boom times, how to avoid overvalued assets during booms from feeding into leverage, and how comprehensive should the new regulation be? How can Basel II be modified to reduce systemic risk? How can speculative behavior best be curbed? Because financial and banking markets are increasingly global and interconnected, is global regulation essential? How can it best be agreed upon? How can it ensure adequate representation of increasingly important developing countries? This conference brought together very high-level regulators, leading academics, senior parliamentarians, the UN, civil society and the private sector to address todays most critical questions on the financial crisis, its management, and its implications for financial regulation.