This article asserts that, in dealing with the 2007-2009 financial crisis, the Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) has placed its role as monetary agency and de facto steward of the market for U.S. Treasury debt ahead of its statutory responsibility for ensuring the soundness of the private banks. This...

Since passage of the Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, the government has been explicitly and implicitly regulating the compensation of top managers at a number of U.S. banks. In addition, bank regulators have added evaluations of bank management compensation packages to the list of factors...

The causes of the financial crisis of 2007-09 are many and varied. Indeed, the crisis may be viewed as the product of a perfect storm. This paper identifies the major culprits or sinners of the U.S. crisis and enumerates their more important sins. The culprits include central bankers, commercial...

The financial market events in September 2008 seem unprecedented in modern times. While other systemically important events happened in the last thirty years affecting U.S. markets, the one month turmoil and government response is without equal. As a result, insurance industry economists have...

In the debate over the proposed establishment of a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, much attention has been given to discussion of whether consumers are irrational or incompetent and therefore need paternalistic regulators to look after them, and whether inadequate consumer protection...

Since the 1930s, when the U.S. Congress interposed government regulation of banks for market discipline, the role of the state in the American financial system has steadily grown. While politicians and executives from the financial services industry characterize the relationship as a...

Ever since severe turmoil enveloped the financial markets in the fall of 2008, commentators have blamed deregulation of the financial system, and specifically the supposed “repeal” of the Glass-Steagall Act by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, for the crisis. This has led many to advocate...

A dozen years ago, Randall Kroszner, soon to be one of George W. Bush's economic advisors and a Governor of the Federal Reserve, could comment in a Levy Institute seminar, without fear of contradiction, that there was no evidence to back the “public interest rationale” for the separation of...

As recovery from the present economic crisis begins, policymakers must address what reforms will be made in financial system in order to prevent the reoccurrence of a similar crisis in the future. What will Congress do in response? In terms of long-term financial reform, what is to be expected...

This paper seeks to review events leading up to the financial crisis of 2008, including the massive government intervention into the U.S. financial markets, and then asks some questions and makes some recommendations about changes in specific areas of business practice and public policy as they...