Cobden Partners

Cobden Partners provides professional advice to governments wishing overcome fundamental problems with their financial systems. We believe that these problems typically arise because banks are relieved of normal market disciplines by government guarantees of their creditors (through state subsidized deposit insurance and "too big to fail" bailouts) and by the activities of central banks, which systematically distort interest rates. We understand, however, that eliminating these market distortions is often politically impossible, at least in the short term. So we recommend practical measures, achievable within given political constraints, that can materially improve a country's financial system. These include changes to: Accounting rules Prudential regulation Mandates and incentive schemes for financial regulators and central bankers Corporate governance regulation as it applies to financial firms Monetary policy Our advice draws on the principals' expertise in economic theory and their "insiders" knowledge of how the financial sector responds to incentives created by regulation, including accounting rules.