When in doubt, bail it out,” is the new policy mantra 11 months after the September 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers. With the global economy tentatively emerging from recession, and investors salivating over the remaining banks' apparent return to significant profitability, some are beginning to ask: “Did we really need to suffer so much?”
Too many policymakers, investors and economists have concluded that US authorities could have engineered a smooth exit from the bubble economy if only Lehman had been bailed out. Too many now believe that any move towards greater financial regulation should be sharply circumscribed since it was the government that dropped the ball. Stifling financial innovation will only slow growth, with little benefit in terms of stemming future crises; it is the job of central banks to prevent bank runs by reacting forcefully in a potential systemic crisis; policymakers should not be obsessed with moral hazard and should forget trying to micromanage the innovative financial sector.
This relatively sanguine diagnosis is tempting, but dangerous. There are three basic problems with the view that the costs of greater bank regulation outweigh the benefits, and that the whole problem was the botched Lehman bail-out.