Distorsioni strutturali della regolamentazione prudenziale delle banche

At the national level, financial regulation based on prohibitions, the so-called structural rules, was accused of producing significant distortion. The degree of competition it was limited, encouraging inefficiencies of all types; the culture of risk it was weakened; wide discretionary powers were used by national authorities to distort market mechanisms and public ownership distorted competition and fostered cronyism. A new common regulative culture is therefore emerged, based on internal free competition within the banking sector and the financial system as a whole. It requires the elimination of strict limits to banking, the abandonment of the principle of specialization between commercial banking and financial asset bank, the affirmation of private property, the liability of the banks in a stronger market discipline, even with regard to their corporate governance. The Basel rules distorts no less serious than those attributed to the previous structural rules. Excessive competition is no less harmful than a low degree of competition, setting the "level playing field" helps large dimension and practicas "too big to fail", the Òcapital crunchesÓ produce serious effects on the economy, while the regulatory costs absorb important share resources of smaller banks. It is a matter of further research whether the new approach to regulation has also favored an increase in the share of national income absorbed by the financial system without having produced a better distribution of risk and a proportional increase in what James Tobin (1984) has defined efficiency of full insurance.