The intensity of the crisis in financial markets has surprised nearly everyone. This paper searches out the root causes of the crisis, distinguishing them from scapegoating explanations that have been used in policy circles to divert attention from the underlying breakdown of incentives. Incentive conflicts explain how securitization went wrong, why credit ratings proved so inaccurate, and why it is superficial to blame the crisis on mark-to-market accounting, an unexpected loss of liquidity or trends in globalization and deregulation in financial markets. The analysis finds disturbing implications of the crisis for Basel II and its implementation. The paper argues that the principal source of financial instability lies in contradictory political and bureaucratic incentives that undermine the effectiveness of financial regulation and supervision around the world. In concluding the paper identifies reforms that would improve incentives by increasing transparency and accountability in government and industry alike.

Since August 2007, after a long period of relative quiet in world markets, a spreading financial crisis has nearly monopolized the flow of economic news. Occurring during a period of strong world macroeconomic growth and low-interest rates, the crisis appears to have surprised financiers and regulators alike. The turbulence was triggered by a sudden and widespread loss of confidence in securitization and financial engineering and by the manifest failure of respected statistical models for assessing and pricing credit risk. Most astonishingly, these now-doubtful techniques had previously been hailed as the cornerstones of modern risk management. Moreover, the turbulence proved greatest in countries whose supervision of credit risk had been thought to be the best in the world. Indeed, the regulatory standards and protocols of these countries were in the process of being emulated worldwide.