Professor Catherine Schenk has been awarded a substantial grant and a project-linked PhD studentship, together totalling around £490,000 from the ESRC for her project on The Development of International Financial Regulation and Supervision.

The current economic crisis has emphasised the importance of developing a long term perspective on institutional change in order to understand and respond to current and future challenges in the global economic system.

This project will assess the development of international financial regulation by contrasting studies of institutional decision-making in three international financial centres in the late 20th century (from 1961-1982) as the market and regulators responded to a series of challenges and at the same time embarked on a process of liberalisation.

New York, London and Hong Kong offer a range of institutional and political economy contexts in which to examine how regulation was developed, coordinated and applied at both national and multinational levels. In addition to using the archives of central banks, multilateral organisations such as the IMF and Bank for International Settlements, this project will draw on the internal correspondence of international banks and their relations with regulating bodies.

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First published: 7 June 2010