We believe attracting and retaining the best people is vital to our effectiveness and that incentives are an important element in that process. But we also recognize that, misapplied, they can also encourage excess. As an industry, we need to do a better job of understanding when incentives begin to work against the public interest rather than for it and take action to redress the balance. I do think it is important to recognize that while incentive structures should be improved across our industry, that is no panacea for poor risk management. More than a few financial institutions kept billions of dollars of assets on their books. Often, they kept those assets because they didn’t know they were bad or toxic. Those institutions and the people that worked there – particularly at banks that failed -- suffered as a result. Thousands of professionals went down with the ship and lost much of their net-wealth as a result. After the shocks of recent months and the associated economic pain, there is a natural and appropriate desire for wholesale reform of our regulatory regime. We should resist a response, however, that is solely designed around protecting us from the 100-year storm. Taking risk completely out of the system will be at the cost of economic growth. We know from economic history that innovation – and the new industries and new jobs that result from it -- require risk taking.
Commenti precedenti:
Tom (11/09/2009 12.35) n/a
Aggiungo al commento del Professore, che in molti casi (certamente non tutti) le banche sapevano esattamente quale rischio stavano portando nei loro banking book. Ma ritenevano che la crescita economica fosse in grado di assorbire tali rischi. E' stato un azzardo consapevole, visti i bonus che potevano generare. I modelli di rischio sono fatti da persone (che spesso devono piegarsi ad obiettivi d'azienda), e danno come output quello che noi vogliamo......
Claudio r. (11/09/2009 16.12) n/a
Qualcuno si è piegato agli obiettivi aziendali molto ma molto volentieri.