Andreas Gustafsson was recently appointed Visiting Fellow at Stockholm University and the Swedish Corporate Governance Institute.
About Andreas and his project:
Andreas has 25 years of experience in the financial market, as General Counsel Europe at Nasdaq and Chairman of Nasdaq Stockholm AB, as well as at the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority. His team has twice won the FT Innovative Lawyers Award in technology (2018) and ESG (2023). He has also been a member of several stakeholder groups such as Swedish self-regulatory bodies, ESMA, EFRAG and CityUK’s Leadership Council. He is currently a member of the Swedish Corporate Governance Code Group.
Andreas Gustafsson is a Visiting Fellow in Capital Markets Law at Stockholm University and the Swedish Corporate Governance Institute, working on a project to investigate and formulate a theory that explains how regulatory conditions sustain, nurture and strengthen the stock markets in the EU and the UK, with a comparison to the US. Special attention will also be paid to developments in Sweden and the other Nordic countries. The aim is to develop the current references to the financial market ecosystem into a coherent theory, building on the initiatives in the EU and the UK over the last 20 years.
More about the project:
In recent years, both the EU, with its Capital Market Union (CMU) initiative, and the UK, with its post-Brexit initiatives, have engaged in numerous stakeholder discussions and put forward various proposals to change the regulatory “ingredients” to strengthen the capital market. However, there has been less emphasis on the ‘sauce’ or the way in which these ingredients, i.e. regulatory conditions, are combined and interact. The aim of my research project is to investigate and formulate a theory that explains how regulatory conditions sustain, nurture and strengthen the stock markets in the EU and the UK, with a comparison to the US. Special attention will also be paid to developments in Sweden and the other Nordic countries. The aim of the four papers is to develop a coherent theory of the financial market ecosystem based on the initiatives taken in the EU and the UK over the last 20 years. The research question is: What are the regulatory conditions and the drivers behind them, and how do they interact to sustain, nurture and strengthen equity markets in the EU and the UK?
There is currently a lot of political attention in the EU and the UK on how to make capital market financing work better over the next 5-10 years to support innovation, sustainability and growth. In the EU with a new EU Commission and in the UK with a new Labour government. Often the government and other stakeholders are looking at how to better compete with the strong US capital market, especially when it comes to attracting and growing technology companies via the public markets. The new EU Commissioner for Financial Services and the Savings and Investment Union, Maria Luís Albuquerque, has a mission statement that focuses on actions to “help people save better, foster capital for innovation, unlock digital finance, ensure the competitiveness of the financial sector and harness sustainable finance”. In the UK, the new Labour government, with Rachel Reeves as Chancellor of the Exchequer, has outlined its financial services plan with the first priority to “provide a secure policy platform for growth, building on the sector’s recognised strengths, supporting innovation, entrepreneurship and long-term investment, and supporting all UK citizens to strengthen their financial security”.
Given the urgency to strengthen capital markets and the ambitious plans of the EU and the UK, there is a unique opportunity to examine the initiatives to adapt and/or adjust regulatory conditions in recent years to support the ongoing development of equity markets, as well as those currently being proposed. This research project will look at the regulatory conditions for the demand side, i.e. investors, and the supply side, i.e. companies, as well as the conditions surrounding the capital market, such as the equity culture. It will include initiatives at national, EU and international level. A better holistic understanding of the regulatory conditions affecting equity markets, i.e. a theory, will help governments to implement appropriate regulatory conditions as well as to evaluate them ex-post. It will be beneficial to have a clear theory of what is being proposed in the EU and the UK, especially when compared with the US.
The project will include four articles, with the first article in 2025 covering the UK’s stock market initiatives. At the same time I will be developing the basis for an article on the EU and the Capital Market Union/Savings and Investment Union to be published in 2026. During 2027, I plan to write an article on Sweden and a final article to summarise my findings into a coherent theory.
The UK market is an appropriate starting point, as the government and other stakeholders have put a lot of effort into thinking about capital markets since leaving the EU in 2016, with reports and discussion papers. During the first half of 2025, I will be interviewing key government, regulatory and business representatives, as well as reviewing written material from HMT, FCA, policymakers, etc. I will also work with a reference group for regular input and discussion.
Questions regarding the project should mainly be addressed to Andreas: andreas.gustafsson@scgi.se
SCGI 