https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0436-0583
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ABSTRACT
The goal of the article is to explore comparatively whether the crisis of 2008–10 has led to policy learning in financial regulation and supervision by civil servants in Estonia, Latvia, and Sweden. The article discusses how various factors can influence policy learning, including the acknowledgment of failure, blame shifting, analytical tractability of the policy problems, and the influence of external actors. We show that although the experience of the crisis varied significantly between the three countries, the policy lessons learnt are broadly similar in all three countries, due to the external influence of the European Union.
Acknowledgments
The research leading to these results received funding from the Estonian Research Council (Grant PUT-1142) and the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2009‒2014 (Project No EMP264).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Interviews
Estonia:
Est1: Official of the Ministry of Finance, 22 September 2014
Est2: Official of the Bank of Estonia, 24 September 2014
Est3: Official of the Ministry of Finance, 25 September 2014
Est4: Official of the Ministry of Finance, 30 September 2014
Est5: Official of the Financial Supervisory Authority, 6 October 2014
Est6: Official of the Financial Supervisory Authority, 8 October 2014
Est7: Official of the Bank of Estonia, 9 October 2014
Est8: Official of the Ministry of Finance, 16 October 2014
Latvia:
La1; Official of the Bank of Latvia, 19 August 2014
La2: Official of the Bank of Latvia, 19.August 2014
La3: Official of the Ministry of Finance, 17 September 2014
La4: 2 officials of the Financial and Capital Market Commission, 18 September 2014
La 5: Official of the Financial and Capital Market Commission, 18 September 2014
La6: Official of the Financial and Capital Market Commission, 22 September 2014
La7: Official of the Ministry of Finance, 22 September 2014
Sweden:
Swe1: Official of the National Debt Office, 21 October 2015
Swe2: Official of the Riksbank, 4 November 2015
Swe3: Official of the Riksbank, 4 November 2015
Swe4: Official of the Riksbank, 4 November 2015
Swe5: Official of the Financial Supervisory Authority, 11 December 2015
Swe6: Former official of the Riksbank, 10 March 2016
Swe7: Official of the Ministry of Finance, 14 March 2016
Swe8: Official of the Fiscal Policy Council, 10 March 2016
Notes
1. Altogether, 23 interviews were conducted during the period 2014–16 (with 7–8 officials in each country).
2. After its acquisition by the government in 2008/9 the bank was re-branded as Citadele Bank.
3. In the case of Latvia, recent developments in the financial sector, in particular the recent collapse of ABLV Bank, the second largest bank (by assets), suggest that implementation was the weakest link in the chain. FCMC as the main supervisor identified the need for stricter liquidity and capital requirements for banks servicing non-residents and also identified the need for closer on-site supervision. This did not, however, lead to stricter supervision nor to enhanced capacity for on-site supervision, particularly regarding the enforcement of anti-money laundering regulations.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Ringa Raudla
Ringa Raudla is Professor of Public Finance and Governance, Ragnar Nurkse School of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia. She received her PhD in economics from the University of Erfurt, Germany, in 2009. Her main research interests are fiscal policy, public budgeting, public administration reform, and institutional economics. Her recent publications include articles in Public Administration Review, Governance, Public Administration, Policy Studies Journal, Public Choice, American Review of Public Administration, Journal of Public Policy, Public Money & Management, International Review of Administrative Sciences, Constitutional Political Economy, Urban Affairs Review, Public Budgeting & Finance, and Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis. She has managed a number of research projects on fiscal governance, policy bureaucracies, crises and policy learning. She is a member of editorial boards of six international academic journals. She is also a founding member of the Young Estonian Academy of Sciences. In 2018, she received the Estonian National Research Award in social sciences.
Egert Juuse
Egert Juuse, PhD, is a research fellow at Ragnar Nurkse Institute of Governance and Innovation, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia, and Advisor to the Minister of Entrepreneurship and Information Technology, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, Estonia. His main research areas include financial and innovation policies, Europeanization, financialization and global value chains. He has been involved in several national research projects, e.g. Public Administration and Development in Small States; Innovation Policies and Uneven Development; and the Participation of Estonian Smart Specialisation Growth Area Enterprises in International Value Chains and Policy Measures to Support Manufacturing Processes with Higher Value Added. Recently he was involved in the 7th EU Framework Programme Project FESSUD: Financialization, Economy, Society and Sustainable Development (2011-2016).
Aleksandrs Cepilovs
Aleksandrs Cepilovs is a project manager at Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology. H holds a Ph.D. in Public Administration from Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology. His main research interests are innovation policy, public sector innovation, policy transfer in different domains, primarily focusing on the Baltic states. He has previously worked for the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Latvia.