The Economist is hosting a debate over Dani Rodrik’s claim that global financial regulation is "neither feasible, nor prudent, nor desirable." Here’s Rodrik:
If we have learnt anything from the crisis it is that financial regulation and supervision need to be tightened and their scope broadened. It seems only a small step to the idea that we need much stronger global regulation as well: a global college of regulators, say; a binding code of international conduct; or even an international financial regulator.
Yet the logic of global financial regulation is flawed. The world economy will be far more stable and prosperous with a thin veneer of international co-operation superimposed on strong national regulations than with attempts to construct a bold global regulatory and supervisory framework. The risk we run is that pursuing an ambitious goal will detract us from something that is more desirable and more easily attained.
The Dish 