Regulators smell a rat – Aaron Woolner column

The law of unintended consequences is evident in the desire of some Asian banks to court Sifi status – despite the increased capital burdens imposed by authorities

Concern about the growing rat population in turn of the twentieth century Hanoi led the French colonial governor Paul Doumer to hatch an ingenious plan: put a bounty on every dead rodent handed in to the authorities and let market forces eradicate the disease-carrying pests. 

At first it was an unqualified success, with corpses handed in to the French authorities at a rate of 1,100 a day, at which point Doumer no doubt congratulated himself on eradicating the rodent threat. Only that’s not what