In this edition, to the very illustrious list of previous winners of the Germán Bernácer Prize, we add, with all due merit, Professor Nicholas Bloom, a British economist, who is today Professor in the Economics Department at Stanford University. Professor Bloom graduated in Economics from Cambridge University, obtained his masters at Oxford University and his Ph.D. at University College London. He has been awarded the 2010 Frisch Medal of the Econometric Society, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an associate editor of, among other journals, Econometrica and the Quarterly Journal of Economics and Management Science. He has published many articles on economic and management issues in top journals, including the American Economic Review, Econometrica and the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Professor Bloom’s two main areas of research are macroeconomic uncertainty and firm organization and productivity. In the first area, his main contributions are to show that macroeconomic uncertainty increases substantially in the aftermath of significant shocks. He also shows that during these periods of uncertainty firm’s investment responds less to demand shocks. This set of contributions has promoted research that explores the importance of variations in volatility to explain macroeconomic fluctuations and the decisions of agents in the economy. In the second area, firm organization and productivity, he shows that social capital, represented by trust, increases aggregate productivity by affecting the organization of firms. He also shows the implications of these organization techniques on the implementation of Information and Telecommunication technologies across firms.

A favourable era for financial regulation followed. This momentum was spurred by revived international cooperation at the highest level, with the milestone G20 Summits in 2009 and 2010 – the political laboratory of the following financial reforms. They resulted in several achievements to strengthen the existing regulatory framework for financial institutions, but also in bringing unregulated segments, activities and actors under supervisory watch – such as over the counter markets, rating agencies and hedge funds. Significant progress has been made on these fronts; even though there still remains room for improvement, notably for a better regulation of non-banking financial intermediation (NBFI) – I will come back to this issue. Page 2 sur 11 In the banking sector, improvements in the regulatory framework are more than evident. The Basel III Agreements finalised in 2017 require larger and sounder buffers for the banking sector and strengthen market discipline. In Europe, as you know well, the Great financial crisis was closely followed by a public debt crisis resulting from the sovereign-bank nexus. As a response, the euro area has forged the Banking Union. Overall, the European banking sector has become much more resilient. Requirements have also been increased in the insurance sector, with the entry into force of the new Solvency II regulatory framework in 2016, which is currently under revision. After the mid-2010s, faced with two structural transformations – ecological and digital –, Europe has been a pioneer in adapting its regulatory framework to be up to the task.