Now most development economists have been shamed by none other than Vikram Pandit, the chief executive of the Citigroup and who, in the Financial Times of October 26, is reported as saying “Under Basel, the ‘sweet spot’ business model for banks in the developed world will be to take retail deposits from mom and pop – small but stable customers – and lend only to big business and the wealthy. I do not believe this is the banking system we want”
Of course this is not the arbitrary regulatory discrimination we need, and I have been arguing against it since 1997 with for example a document I presented at the UN in October 2007 titled “Are the Basel bank regulations good for development?”. Unfortunately much of the development debate of developing countries has been hijacked by baby-boomer development economists from developed countries and who cannot get it in their head that development requires a lot of risk-taking… and that therefore concentrating too much on avoiding bank failures will hinder the growth and the development of the economy.
As an example it suffices to read the Recommendations by the Commission of Experts of the President of the General Assembly on reforms of the international monetary and financial system chaired by Joseph Stiglitz. Nowhere in it do we find a word about the utterly misguided and odiously discriminatory capital requirements for banks imposed by the Basel Committee and which signify that a bank needs to have 5 TIMES more capital when lending to small businesses and entrepreneurs (100%-risk-weight) than when lending to triple-A rated borrowers (20%-risk-weight); and this even though the first are already paying much higher interest which goes to bank capital; and this even though no financial crisis has ever resulted from excessive lending to those perceived as “risky” as they have all resulted from excessive lending to those ex-ante perceived as not risky.
The Commission of Experts speak of increasing risk-premia but fail to notice that one of the reasons for that is the arbitrary regulatory risk-adverseness. It also speaks out against under-regulated and dysfunctional markets that fail to allocate capital to high productivity uses, without noticing that perhaps the major cause of markets being dysfunctional is often bad regulations, such as those issued by the Basel Committee.
Perhaps it is high-time economists from developing countries start to develop their own development paradigms; some of which might even help developed countries to keep from submerging.
And meanwhile, all you traditional development economists, put on your cones of shame.
A final question should Vikram Pandit now move on to the World Bank?
