Grey matter in shadow banking: international organizations and expert strategies in global financial governance

Who controls global policy debates on shadow banking regulation? We
show how experts secured control over how issues in shadow banking
regulation are treated by examining the policy recommendations of the
Bank of International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund and the
Financial Stability Board. The evidence suggests that IO experts embedded
a bland reformism opposed to both strong and ‘light touch’ regulation at
the core of the emerging regulatory regime. Technocrats reinforced each
other’s expertise, excluded some potential competitors (legal scholars), coopted
others (select Fed and elite academic economists), and deployed
measurement, mandate, and status strategies to assert issue control. In the field
of shadow banking regulation, academic economists’ influence came from
their credibility as arbitrageurs between several professional fields rather
than their intellectual output. The findings have important implications for
how we study the relationship between IO technocrats and experts from
other professional fields.