Most people don't understand the arcane aspects of bank regulation, to understand whatever implicit transfers and taxes are involved in that regulation. So that means that if if you are an ideologically a republican representative who wouldn't want to be sociated with a particular transfer, you're safe. Sybody knows, cause nobody knows it's going. And then you can do your deal in a hidden way. You know, even it we're looking at housing policy australia, which is unit cameral, a legislature, a it is a country that has also been very stable in terms of its financial system. But australia addresses issues of inequality directly through fiscal policy. What we do is, because
Charles Calomiris of Columbia University and Stephen Haber of Stanford University, co-authors of Fragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit, talk with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about their book. The conversation focuses on how politics and economics interact to give some countries such as Canada a remarkably stable financial system while others such as the United States have a much less stable system. The two authors discuss the political forces that explain the persistence of seemingly bad financial regulation. The conversation includes a discussion of the financial crisis of 2008.