Charles Goodhart and Dirk Schoenmaker — The United States dominates global investment banking: does it matter for Europe?

Europe’s banks are in retreat from playing a global investment banking role, and this trend is likely to continue in the future. What will be the consequences and what should be the policy response?

Important because of the author, Charles Goodhart.

• In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the market share of US investment banks is increasing, while that of their European counterparts is declining. We present evidence that US investment banks are on the verge of taking over pole position in European investment banking. Meanwhile, since 2015, Chinese investment banks have overtaken American and European investment banks in the Asia-Pacific market.
• Credit rating agencies and investment banks are the gatekeepers of the capital markets. The European supervisory institutions can effectively supervise the European operations of these US-managed players. On the political side, we suggest that the European Commission should continue to view its, albeit declining, banking industry as a strategic sector. The Commission, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England should jointly develop a strategic agenda for the EU-US Regulatory Dialogue.
• Finally, corporates rely on investment banks to issue new securities. We recommend that the big European corporates should cherish the (few) remaining European investment banks, by giving them at least one place in otherwise US- dominated banking syndicates. That could help to avoid complete dependence on US investment banks.

Bruegel
The United States dominates global investment banking: does it matter for Europe?
Charles Goodhart and Dirk Schoenmaker

Charles Goodhart was the Norman Sosnow Professor of Banking and Finance at the London School of Economics until 2002; he is now an Emeritus Professor in the Financial Markets Group there. Before joining the London School of Economics in 1985, he worked at the Bank of England for seventeen years as a monetary adviser, becoming a Chief Adviser in 1980. During 1986, Prof. Goodhart helped to found, with Prof. Mervyn King, the Financial Markets Group at London School of Economics, which began its operation at the start of 1987. In 1997, he was appointed one of the outside independent members of the Bank of England’s new Monetary Policy Committee until May 2000. Earlier he had taught at Cambridge and London School of Economics.

Dirk Schoenmaker is a Professor of Banking and Finance at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam, and a Senior Fellow at the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel. He is also a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and a member of the Advisory Scientific Committee of the European Systemic Risk Board at the ECB.