Though designed by a selective group of regulators from the world's largest financial centres, Basel banking standards are being implemented far beyond the financial core, and this is often seen as confirmation of their global relevance. Yet we show that the implementation of Basel II and III is shallow and highly selective in most countries outside of the Basel Committee.Drawing on the available evidence and regression analysis, we attribute shallow and highly selective adoption to the sheer complexity of the standards, and the fact that they need substantial modification before they can be fully implemented, particularly in developing countries. Implementation challenges are compounded by gaps in the financial market infrastructure, notably credit rating agencies, as well as shallow capital markets. Beyond this, we attribute cross-country variation in implementation to differences in the underlying political economy of the banking sector. Countries are likely to pursue relatively high levels of Basel II and III implementation when large foreign and internationally active domestic banks operate in their jurisdiction and when they have a market-oriented approach to the financial sector. Conversely countries are likely to pursue relatively low levels of implementation when they have few internationally active banks and a more interventionist approach.

Standard‐setting bodies in global finance follow a core‐periphery logic, imposing a rigid dichotomy between standard‐setters and standard‐takers. They also focus exclusively on promoting financial stability. We argue that both attributes are increasingly problematic in today's world of globalised finance. Developing countries outside of standard‐setting bodies are highly integrated into global finance and while they are not systemically important, they are greatly affected by the regulatory decisions taken in the core. Analysing Basel banking standards, we show how the two‐tier structure of decision‐making results in international standards that generate adverse implications for countries in the periphery, particularly developing countries. Focusing on debates over the regulation of non‐bank credit intermediation, we show how the exclusive focus on financial stability can operate to the detriment of other important policy objectives, including financial inclusion. To improve the efficacy of international standard setting we make a series of recommendations aimed at increasing the applicability of standards to a wide variety of jurisdictions, and widening the focus of standard‐setting beyond financial stability. We also propose the creation of a new standard‐setting body for the regulation of fintech that models a more inclusive and holistic approach.

Help with activities of daily living for people in the community is provided through formal services (public and private) and informal (often unpaid) care. This paper investigates how these systems interlock and who is at risk of unmet need. It begins by mapping differences between OECD countries in the balance between formal and informal care, before giving a detailed breakdown for the UK. New analysis of UK Family Resources Survey data for 2012/13 and 2013/14 suggests high levels of unmet need. We investigate who receives formal and informal care, and who receives neither, among the working-age and older populations. We find that while informal care fills some gaps left by the lack of availability of formal services (and vice versa), not all older or working-age disabled people are protected in these ways. Adults living alone and those with high but not the highest levels of difficulty are most likely to have unmet need. Means-tested public entitlements ameliorate but do not remove the increased risk among people in low-income households. The paper concludes that public policy needs to integrate its support for formal and informal modes of care, with particular attention to those groups most at risk of unmet need.

We examine the processes by which regulations prevailing in countries at the core of the global economy spread to countries outside this small group. We show how specific cross-border relationships between banks, regulators, and investors generate regulatory interdependence that drives the diffusion of international standards from the standard-setting countries at the core of the financial system to the financial periphery. We argue that regulatory decisions in the financial periphery are shaped by the prior choices of regulators in other countries, mediated through four specific cross-border relationships associated with banking globalization. We draw on a new dataset of Basel II adoption in over ninety jurisdictions in the financial periphery. Using spatial lag models we show that regulators’ decisions over the adoption of international standards are shaped by the choices of regulators to whom they are connected through the cross-border operations of individual banks, international professional networks, and competition for capital. Our analysis underscores the value of parsing out the relevant actor-level linkages that connect countries: while international considerations shape regulatory decisions, what matters is not the extent to which countries are connected to the global economy but rather the nature of these connections.

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