In a sense, the 2008 financial crisis was a crisis of theory. Regulators, banks, and financial markets all had encompassing theoretical models about how the economy worked, but they all failed to predict the looming crisis. As such, regulators increasingly turn to big data to understand banks' health. Despite the prominence of big data in society, its use in the public sector remains grossly understudied. This paper explores the regulatory use of big data in the case of the EU-wide banking stress test, a key regulatory indicator. The paper draws on interviews with supervisors at the European Central Bank (ECB), European Banking Authority (EBA) and National Bank of Belgium (NBB), as well as with consultants and risk directors in Belgian banks, to explain how big data-driven regulation affects the relationship between regulators and regulated entities. It draws particular attention to the epistemological component of using large data sets in decision-making: a big data state of mind. The article more specifically shows how the underlying epistemology, rather than simply the bigness of datasets, affects the relationship between regulators and regulated entities, and the regulatory process at large. The paper concludes that regulators' big data state of mind calls for new practical and legal guidelines regarding the validity of data-driven knowledge claims. Moreover, it shows how accountability based on descriptive transparency no longer makes sense in the ‘age of the algorithm’, suggesting a shift towards relational transparency and joint knowledge production.

从某种意义上说，2008年的金融危机是一场理论危机。监管机构、银行和金融市场都拥有关于经济运行方式的理论模型，但他们都未能预测迫在眉睫的危机。因此，监管机构越来越多地转向大数据来了解银行的健康状况。尽管大数据在社会中占有突出地位，但其在公共部门中的应用仍然严重不足。本文探讨了在欧盟范围内的银行业压力测试（一项关键监管指标）的情况下对大数据的监管使用。该论文借鉴了对欧洲中央银行 (ECB)、欧洲银行管理局 (EBA) 和比利时国家银行 (NBB) 的监管者以及比利时银行的顾问和风险主管的采访，解释大数据驱动的监管如何影响监管者与受监管实体之间的关系。它提请特别注意在决策中使用大数据集的认识论组成部分：大数据心态。这篇文章更具体地展示了潜在的认识论，而不仅仅是数据集的规模，如何影响监管者和受监管实体之间的关系，以及整个监管过程。该论文得出的结论是，监管机构的大数据心态要求针对数据驱动的知识声明的有效性制定新的实用和法律指南。此外，它表明基于描述性透明度的问责制在“算法时代”不再有意义，表明向关系透明度和联合知识生产的转变。