An examination of U.S. banking history shows that economically efficient private bank money requires that information-revealing securities markets for bank liabilities be closed. That is, banks are optimally opaque, which is why they are regulated and examined. This Article examines the transition from private bank notes, the predominant form of money before the U.S. Civil […]

Shadowy Banking is financial activity that is engineered to extract implicit subsidies from government safety nets. It substitutes innovative corporate entities and products for activities that could be performed more straightforwardly within a traditional banking firm. The shadows obscure organizational forms and transaction strategies that circumvent regulatory restraints and extract subsidies by regulation-induced innovation. Because […]

In this Article I review the literature on the conceptual and analytical arguments for and against capital adequacy and liquidity requirements for banks, in light of historical and recent experiences and evidence. Much research argues for higher capital adequacy requirements given their beneficial effects in terms of better incentives, greater buffers, and improved interventions in […]

Much of financial regulation and supervision is devoted to ensuring the safety and soundness of financial institutions. Such micro- and macro-prudential policies are almost always formulated as capital requirements, leverage constraints, and other statutory restrictions designed to limit the probability of extreme financial loss to some small but acceptable threshold. However, if the risks of […]

In 2013, a new system for mandatory public disclosure came into effect, the first since the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 1934. Today, major banks and certain other entities must make disclosures mandated not only by the SEC, but also by a new system developed by the Federal Reserve Board and […]

In the wake of the global financial crisis, attention has often focused on whether incentives generated by bank executives’ compensation programs led to excessive risk-taking. Post-crisis, compensation reform proposals have taken broadly three approaches: long-term deferred equity incentive compensation, mandatory bonus clawbacks upon accounting restatements and financial losses, and debt-based compensation. In earlier articles we […]