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Howard Davies
For Howard Davies's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 25, 2013
What to do with banks that are 'too big to fail'?
The travails of JPMorgan Chase have reopened the debate about what to do with American and European banks that are 'too big to fail.' The result so far is an uneven playing field.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 18, 2013
Margaret Thatcher and the 'Big Bang'
Americans have been surprised at the sharply divided views in Britain over the governance of Margaret Thatcher, a product with more appeal in export markets.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 27, 2013
Financial regulators' international variety show
It is hard to identify a correlation between regulatory structure and state success in heading off or responding to the financial crisis triggered in 2008.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 7, 2012
Economists in denial as conventional tools fail
In an exasperated outburst, just before he left the presidency of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet complained that, "as a policymaker during the crisis, I found the available [economic and financial] models of limited help. I would go further: In the face of the crisis, we felt abandoned by conventional tools."
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 4, 2012
Making the eurozone work
Some economists believe that this summer could mark the moment when some of the eurozone's peripheral members may begin to be forced out; others think that such a scenario is inconceivable. All agree that, at least in the short term, a eurozone breakup would be disastrous for jobs and growth.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 16, 2012
Finessing one big banking union for Europe
In the last few weeks, the idea of establishing a European banking union has become the latest remedy advanced as a solution to the long-running euro crisis. But whatever the merits of a banking union — and there are many — proposals to establish one raise more questions than can currently be answered.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 17, 2011
London versus the eurozone: The game is on
Ever since the United Kingdom joined the European Economic Community in 1973, after the French withdrew Charles de Gaulle's veto of its membership, Britain's relationship with the European integration process has been strained.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2011
Negotiating Europe's financial wasteland
"April is the cruelest month," wrote T.S. Eliot at the beginning of his great poem, "The Waste Land." But if Eliot had been a professional investor who had observed European financial markets over the last few years, I am quite certain that his choice would have been August.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 29, 2011
Chinese finance comes of age
The Chinese financial system's evolution in recent years has been extraordinary. I have observed its transformation as a member of the International Advisory Council of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC).
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 3, 2010
A moveable financial feast
LONDON — There was a time when league tables were to be found only on the sports pages of newspapers. Now they are a global obsession. There are school and university league tables, rankings of companies on profitability or corporate social responsibility, tables of happiness indicators by country, and tables that attempt to rank consumer brands by value. There is even a league table of the world's funniest jokes (I did not laugh much).
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 24, 2010
The European Central Bank has no clothes
LONDON — The crisis in the euro zone remains far from resolution. Investor worries are now concentrated on the health of European banks, many of which have large exposures to Greece and the other southern European countries with severe fiscal problems.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 22, 2010
A pig's breakfast in Europe
LONDON — The Greek debt problem has been poorly handled by Europe's decision-makers. European Union heads of government, and the European Central Bank, initially rejected the idea of involving the International Monetary Fund, but without a fall-back plan. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that part of the motivation for this was French President Nicolas Sarkozy's reluctance to see Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF's managing director, ride in from Washington to the rescue of the euro zone. Strauss-Kahn is, of course, likely to be Sarkozy's Socialist rival in the next French presidential election.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 20, 2009
Mistrust carries economic consequences
LONDON — Public trust in financial institutions, and in the authorities that are supposed to regulate them, was an early casualty of the financial crisis. That is hardly surprising, as previously revered firms revealed that they did not fully understand the very instruments they dealt in or the risks they assumed.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 22, 2009
Are the finance sector's halcyon days over?
LONDON — For at least a quarter-century, the financial sector has grown far more rapidly than the economy as a whole, both in developed and in most developing countries. The ratio of total financial assets (stocks, bonds, and bank deposits) to gross domestic product (GDP) in the United Kingdom was about 100 percent in 1980, while by 2006 it had risen to around 440 percent. In China, financial assets went from being virtually nonexistent to well over 300 percent of GDP during this period.

Longform

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