Past Event

Professor Anat Admati on The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It

Professor Anat Admati's book, The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It, uncovers just how little things have changed—and why banks are still so dangerous. Writing in clear language that anyone can understand, Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig debunk the false and misleading claims of bankers, regulators, politicians, academics, and others who oppose effective reform, and they explain how the banking system can be made safer and healthier.

The Bankers New Clothes

Professor Anat Admati's landing page image

On June 18th, the World Bank Governance Global Practice Book Talks welcomed Professor Anat Admati who presented her book, The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It. The book uncovers just how little things have changed—and why banks are still so dangerous. Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig debunk the false and misleading claims of bankers, regulators, politicians, academics, and others who oppose effective reform, and they explain how the banking system can be made safer and healthier.

About the Book

New bank failures have been a rude awakening for everyone who believed that the banking industry was reformed after the Global Financial Crisis—and that we’d never again have to choose between massive bailouts and financial havoc. The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It uncovers just how little things have changed—and why banks are still so dangerous. Writing in clear language that anyone can understand, Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig debunk the false and misleading claims of bankers, regulators, politicians, academics, and others who oppose effective reform, and they explain how the banking system can be made safer and healthier. Thoroughly updated for a world where bank failures have made a dramatic return, this acclaimed and important book now features a new preface and four new chapters that expose the shortcomings of current policies and reveal how the dominance of banking even presents dangers to the rule of law and democracy itself.

Speaker bios

Arturo Herrera Gutierrez

Arturo Herrera Gutierrez

Global Director for Governance Global Practice

Arturo Herrera Gutierrez is the Global Director for Governance Global Practice in the Equitable Growth, Finance, and Institutions Practice Group (EFI) Vice Presidency.

Mr. Herrera, a Mexican National, has extensive experience in governance, as a practitioner and from the development and academic perspectives. He joined the World Bank in 2010 as Senior Public Sector Management Specialist in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region. He held various positions in the Bank including as Sector Manager in LAC, Practice Manager in Governance Global Practice for the LAC and East Asia and the Pacific regions in the Global Unit before leaving the World Bank Group in 2018.

Between 2018 and 2021 he has held leadership positions in the Government of Mexico as Co-Head of the Finance Team in Presidential Transition Team, Deputy Finance Minister and, most recently, as Minister of Finance and Public Credit.

As Global Director for Governance, Mr. Herrera’s priorities include leading the formulation of strategy and engagement of the Bank’s work on public institutions and country-level governance, especially in fragile, conflict and violent settings; maximizing the effectiveness of operational support for public financial management and public procurement; fostering excellence in the Governance Practice’s work on public sector administration and operational support for legal and judicial reforms.

Mr. Herrera has also taught Monetary and Banking and Macro and Micro Economics at both El Colegio de Mexico and New York University where he completed his doctoral studies in Economics.

Anat Admati profile image

Anat Admati

Professor

Anat R. Admati is the George G.C. Parker Professor of Finance and Economics at Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where she is also a Faculty Director of the Corporations and Society Initiative (CASI) and for the Program on Capitalism and Democracy (CAD), in collaboration with the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at the  Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). She is also a Professor of Environmental Social Sciences at the Doerr School of Sustainability, and a senior fellow at Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). She has written extensively on information dissemination in financial markets, portfolio management, financial contracting, corporate governance and banking. Admati’s current research, teaching and advocacy focus on the complex interactions between business, law, and policy with focus on governance and accountability. Since 2010, Admati has been active in the policy debate on financial regulations. She is the co-author, with Martin Hellwig, of the award-winning and highly acclaimed book The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It (Princeton University Press, 2013, expanded edition 2024). In 2014, she was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world and by Foreign Policy Magazine as among 100 global thinkers. Admati holds BSc from the Hebrew University, MA, MPhil and PhD from Yale University, and an honorary doctorate from University of Zurich. She is a fellow of the Econometric Society, the recipient of multiple fellowships, research grants, and paper recognition, and is a past board member of the American Finance Association. She has served on a number of editorial boards and is a member of the FDIC’s Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee, a former member of the CFTC’s Market Risk Advisory Committee, and a former visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund.

Date: June 18, 2024

Time: 04:58 PM - 04:58 PM ET

Location: World Bank Group