Miguel Fernández Ordóñez: The challenges to the Spanish banking system in the face of the global crisis Speech by Mr Miguel Fernández Ordóñez, Governor of the Bank of Spain, at the 50th anniversary of ESADE, Barcelona, 30 October 2008. *  *  *  I have the pleasure of celebrating today with you the 50th anniversary of this institution. Over this half-century, ESADE has earned a reputation as one of the most prestigious business schools in the world. Education and training is the most important factor driving economic and social development. I therefore wish to begin by congratulating you on the work you have done and encouraging you to continue on this path. The crisis besetting the international financial system will henceforth be a mandatory topic of study in your classrooms. The events unfolding continuously since August 2007, and with particular virulence since September this year, make the current crisis the most serious one in living memory. This crisis, like others before it, manifested itself as a loss of confidence by the agents participating in the financial markets. Nevertheless, there are features which make it different: its degree of complexity, its global span and the speed with which the problems spread from one financial system to another are unprecedented. The current situation is further complicated by the notable weakness of the global economy. In these circumstances, the interrelatedness of financial and economic factors further contributes to the deterioration of the situation.

“Nonmonetary Effects of the Financial Crisis in the Propagation of the Great Depression”, American Economic Review, 73, 257–276. Bernanke, Ben S. (2005). “The Global Saving Glut and the US Current Account Deficit”, Sandridge Lecture, Virginia Association of Economics, Richmond, Virginia, 10 March. Bernanke, Ben S. (2010). “Monetary Policy and the Housing Bubble”, speech to the American Economic Association, Atlanta, Georgia, 3 January. Bernanke, Ben S., Mark Gertler, and Simon Gilchrist (1999). “The Financial Accelerator in a Quantitative Business Cycle Framework“, in John B. Taylor and Michael Woodford (eds.) Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, 1341–1393. Elsevier: Amsterdam. Blanchard, Olivier, Giovanni Dell’Ariccia and Paolo Mauro (2010). “Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy”, mimeo, International Monetary Fund, January. Bloxham, Paul Christopher Kent and Michael Robson (2011). “Asset Prices, Credit Growth, Monetary and Other Policies: An Australian Case Study”, National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 16845. Borio, Claudio, and Haibin Zhu (2008). “Capital regulation, Risk-Taking and Monetary Policy: A Missing Link in the Transmission Mechanism”, Bank for International Settlements Working Paper No.268. Cecchetti, Stephen, Hans Genberg, and Sushil Wadhwani (2002). “Asset Prices in a Flexible Inflation Targeting Framework”, in William Hunter, George Kaufman and Michael Pomerleano, eds., Asset Price Bubbles: The Implications for Monetary, Regulatory and International Policies, 427–444. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA. Clarida, Richard, Jordi Gali, and Mark Gertler (1999). “The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective.” Journal of Economic Literature, 37,1661–1707. Committee on the Global Financial System (2010). “Macroprudential Instruments and Frameworks: A Stocktaking of the Issues and Experiences”, http://www.bis.org/publ/cgfs38.pdf.