The FSA is committed to encouraging debate among academics, practitioners and policy-makers in all aspects of financial regulation. To facilitate this, the FSA is publishing a series of occasional papers in financial regulation, extending across economics and other disciplines. These papers will cover such topics as the rationale for regulation, the costs and benefits of various aspects of regulation, and the structure and development of the financial services industry. Since their main purpose

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... will be to stimulate interest and debate, we welcome the opportunity to publish controversial and challenging material and to publish papers that may have been presented or published elsewhere. The main criterion for acceptance of papers, which will be independently refereed, is that they should make substantial contributions to knowledge and understanding in the area of financial regulation. We will encourage contributions from external authors as well as from within the FSA. In either case the papers will express the views of the author and not necessarily those of the FSA. Comments on these papers are welcomed and should addressed to the series editors.