Moral Hazard, central bankers, and Banking Union: professional dissensus and the politics of European financial system stability

Banking Union was a major policy response to the financial crisis that began in 2007 and the subsequent Eurozone crisis. Moral hazard has frequently been presented as a major cause of these crises. Therefore, Banking Union can be understood as a response to moral hazard in relation to banks and sove...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of European Integration 2023-01, Vol.45 (1), p.15-41
Main Authors: Pierret, Laura, Howarth, David
Format: Article
Language:eng ; fre
Subjects:
Banking
Banking Union
Bundesbank
Central banks
Economic crisis
European Central Bank
financial stability
Financial systems
Moral hazard
Stability
Supervision
Systems stability
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Summary:Banking Union was a major policy response to the financial crisis that began in 2007 and the subsequent Eurozone crisis. Moral hazard has frequently been presented as a major cause of these crises. Therefore, Banking Union can be understood as a response to moral hazard in relation to banks and sovereigns. Yet, moral hazard was an acknowledged and supposedly managed problem prior to these events. Paradoxically, moral hazard has been used to justify contradictory policy options to safeguard European financial system stability, such as decentralized institutional arrangements for banking supervision but also a centralized system coordinated by the European Central Bank (ECB). To address this paradox, this paper investigates moral hazard as a political concept. Based on a comparison of how central bankers from the Bundesbank and the ECB understand and use the moral hazard concept, this paper argues that moral hazard is closer to the realm of politics than expertise.
ISSN:0703-6337
1477-2280
DOI:10.1080/07036337.2022.2156501