Regulation following (between) financial crisis (crises): compulsion and opportunity

Abstract

Volume LV/Fourth Issue of the Public Finance Quarterly, as a quasi thematic edition, contained five articles focusing on the recent financial crisis. The topic of our paper is also the crisis; without concentrating on individual countries or groups of coun-tries, we focus on the world economy and the phenomenon in its entirety. The main aim was to try to describe and evaluate the oper-ation of international institutions and the effects of financial regulations embedded into the economic system of developed and emerging countries. We assume that in addition to the non-satisfactory regulations, derived from oversimplified and overrated the-ories and models, the substantial distortions in the global institutional structure, leading to the explosion of the crisis, were also caused by the inherent egoism of human kind and the resulting excessive desire for profit. Even if future crises cannot be completely eliminated by changing the rules of the game, the probability and depth of similar events can be reduced and their duration might be shortened. In many instances the rules could be amended immediately, in some other cases the implementation of the changes requires a longer period of time. Unfortunately, the urge to act, which could be felt at the beginning and height of the crisis, has seri-ously diminished over time. The situation is paradoxical: humanity generally, but especially the decision makers – politicians and economic leaders – would not learn from their own mistakes.