Securities and Derivatives Markets

This chapter traces how securities regulation in Europe and the rest of the world, including at the global level, have co-evolved over the past decades. Compared to banking, global agreements in the securities sector have been less consequential for national and European regulation. As securities markets on the European continent matured over the 1990s, first national authorities and then the EU itself unilaterally oriented their regulatory reforms on standing US practices (for example in the field of insider trading). Since the early 2000s, rule adaptation across the Atlantic has become more of a mutual affair but the United States has continued to lead. Given the enormous controversies surrounding for example credit derivatives, it is remarkable how easily consensus between Brussels and Washington was reached on the way forward for derivatives markets.