Finance: Weapon of Mass Destruction or armed wing of States ?

What with falling GDP, job losses, escalating public debt and weakened monetary policies, the 2007-2008 crisis left finance looking more like a weapon of mass destruction, hitting the economy, and household and political confidence in banks and markets in certain countries.

Yet it was finance that served as the States’ “armed wing” by enabling the real economy to grow. The fact that States take very different approaches complicates international cooperation on financial regulation. Sometimes the priority is on developing financial markets, while on occasion it is a case of keeping up strength and competition between banks. At other times, the focus is on more popular measures that lack a global vision (e.g. tax on financial transactions).

Do international financial institutions take the «one size fits all” approach too far? Isn’t the divide between the English-speaking world and continental Europe an illustration of the different approaches to the question put in this session’s title?