John Cassidy talks to Anat Admati about her conference in Washington on Finance and Society.  Women speakers dominate:  Janet Yellen, Elizabeth Warren and Christine Lagarde.

The title of the conference is “Finance & Society,” which is also the name of a course you teach at Stanford Business School. Is that where you got the idea for holding a conference?

AA:  I’ve been working on both at the same time. The course and the conference share the objective of engaging more people in an informed discussion of how finance can best serve society and how to improve the system, which is currently distorted and dangerous, due to ineffective regulations.

What do you hope the conference will achieve?

AA: I hope it helps to frame and focus the discussion of these important issues, to expose the challenges, and to cause people, especially those who can impact policy, to try and improve the financial system. I view this discussion—done as broadly as possible and with as many people as possible involved—as critically important, because the financial system is fraught with conflicts of interest and lacks basic rules of accountability. Yet the issues are widely misunderstood, and the policy debate is muddled. I hope the conference, as well as the course and other efforts, helps to change this situation.

So how did the conference actually come about?

The concept of the conference started evolving about two years ago. Eventually, three economists (from Iceland, Switzerland, and the I.M.F.) joined me to try and make it happen. Last June, I shared the idea with Rob Johnson, the president of INET (the Institute for New Economic Thinking). He and others at INET were enthusiastic, and we have been collaborating with them to put it on.

Why did you decide to make it an all-female event?

AA: We didn’t actually set out to have all female speakers. But we wanted to highlight and celebrate the fact that there are now more—indeed many—women in leadership positions who can bring important insights to the discussion. So we started by creating the theme, and the content, and then used our “girls’ network” to invite women who could make the event powerful and impactful. As it happened, we never ran out of women we wanted to invite. In this regard, I should perhaps direct you to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s answer to the question of when there would be enough women on the Supreme Court: “When there are nine.”

You’ve got an all-star lineup.

AA: It took some effort to get commitments and coördinate a date with Janet Yellen and Christine Lagarde. But once we had that (which luckily also worked for Senator Warren) it was remarkably easy to get the others to come. The response was very enthusiastic.

What does it mean that, today, three of the most important economic and financial policymakers are female—and that coming up behind them are lots of other very influential women

AA: The fact that there are more women in influential positions means that there is progress, with more role models, and reason to celebrate. Having women deliver great content and insights on important issues is the best way of celebrating the progress.

The men who were running the financial world in the run-up to 2008 made a mess of things. Lots of people felt it was time for a change.

AA:   I haven’t noticed significant change within the financial industry. There is a pervasive sens of entitlement, with massive lobbying efforts and virtually the same practices as before.

Beyond highlighting women, was there any specific principle behind the types of speakers you chose?

AA: We avoided inviting people who work for private, for-profit financial institutions, whose interests are sometimes in direct conflict with those of the rest of society. My experience is that they often make vague, perfunctory, or, worse, misleading statements, which muddle the debate and waste valuable time.

Spin is not unique to the private sector, of course. Policymakers and central bankers may also portray the situation, and their own efforts, in a better light than is appropriate. But policymakers hold the key to improving the system, and I think we have enough speakers with no institutional constraints to make sure that the discussion gets at the underlying issues in some depth.

Senator Warren has made clear that she hopes issues relating to finance and Wall Street figure prominently in the 2016 campaign. How important has she been in highlighting these topics and keeping them on the political agenda?

AA:  She has been extremely important. I found it remarkable and dismaying that financial reform has not really been on the agenda in the past two elections, 2012 and 2014. It appears that money and lobbying corrupts politicians from both parties.

In your own work, you’ve focussed on huge financial institutions. I’m sure you’ll talk about this more in your remarks at the conference, but what is the single biggest outstanding issue? Too big to fail? Derivatives? Governance? Something else?

AA:  These are related and interlocked problems that boil down to a single overriding issue, namely the ability of people in the financial industry, and especially at the largest institutions, to take and hide excessive, unnecessary risk that benefits them and harms the public. The fault lies with policymakers who fail to set and enforce appropriate rules. Some regulations that could be highly beneficial are badly designed and insufficient, while others that have been implemented are wasteful and counterproductive. And accountability is lacking throughout this system, including accountability for policymakers.

In addition to the keynote speeches and Q. & A.s, the conference will feature panel sessions on governance and politics, credit distortions, and financial regulations, all of which are important.

AA:  Inequality is a complex topic that we can’t do justice in a one-day event that tries to unpack lots of other issues specific to the financial system. But I am sure the discussion will shed some light on how distortions in the financial system contribute to the problem.