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Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:35:00 GMT
The economy is showing some bright spots, but rising unemployment, weak consumer spending and the housing market continue to be concerns. Robert Litan examines the state of the economy and offers insights into job creation and entrepreneurship, the possibility of a “double dip” recession and higher capital requirements for lending institutions.
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Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:37:21 GMT
Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn) has introduced legislation to reform the financial sector in the wake of the recent economic crisis. Senator Dodd’s proposal calls for consolidating the four federal financial regulatory agencies into a single regulator. Fellow Douglas Elliott says regulation consolidation is definitely in order.
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Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd is introducing legislation to consolidate banking regulation into one federal agency. Doug Elliott says having one regulator for “safety and soundness” and another focused on consumer protection is promising, should help avoid regulatory arbitrage and could hopefully prevent another financial crisis.
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Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:00:00 GMT
This month marks 80 years since the Wall Street crash of 1929 that was one cause of the Great Depression. Alice Rivlin says the 1929 crash led to the creation of the financial and social safety net measures that have helped prevent today's economic crisis from being a full-blown depression.
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Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT
As the financial system continues to stabilize, the House Financial Services Committee has drafted legislation intended to prevent future crises. The latest bill, which has been endorsed by the Obama administration, focuses on systemic risk and financial institutions that are deemed to be “too big to fail.” Douglas Elliott analyzes the 253-page bill, saying he thinks the enhanced resolution authority is essential, but he raises serious concerns about the structure of the council intended to tackle systemic risks.
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Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT
The “Black Tuesday” stock market crash of 1929 still haunts us on its 80th anniversary this Thursday. William Galston describes the actions taken over this past year to avert a second Great Depression and suggests that the flap over Wall Street bonuses signals a return to business as usual. Our political system has a duty to act against the obvious abuses, he writes.
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Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT
The Obama administration’s pay czar imposed limits on executive compensation for bailed-out Wall Street firms. Doug Elliott says the actions are not smart, sending the message to those employees that their pay will not be determined the same way as on the rest of Wall Street and will be considerably lower and more volatile. This risks losing the best people, since the ones that move are always those who have the best options elsewhere.
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Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Amid White House efforts to revamp financial sector regulations—including creation of a new oversight agency—Martin Baily argues that the Federal Reserve should not take over this responsibility. The Fed, he says, is in a unique position to take on the macro side of prudential regulation—that of the systemic risk regulator, a responsibility that would well suit its purview of the overall stability and performance of the macro economy.
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Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT
In light of the debate over whether the Obama administration's plan for financial regulation goes far enough to curb institutions that become "too big to fail," Martin Baily addresses the question of whether any regulation of "systemic risk" will inevitably lead to the designation of some banks as "too big to fail."
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Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Gary Burtless examines the events of the past eighteen months and concludes that the status quo poses great risk to the U.S. finanical system and thus the current regulatory regime cannot be left unchanged.
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Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Martin Baily testified before the Senate Banking Committee on the creation of a single micro prudential regulator, combining the regulatory and supervisory functions now carried out by the Fed, the OCC, the OTS, the SEC and the FDIC. He calls attention to the Australia model as a good positive example where a single prudential regulator has worked well.
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Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT
The proposed higher capital requirements for U.S. banks being discussed at the G-20 meeting as part of the financial sector reforms is likely to have a relatively modest impact on bank lending, according to Douglas Elliott. Tougher capital requirements can powerfully aid the stability of the system without doing excessive damage to lending or the economy, he says.
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Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Examining the structure of financial regulation to see what lessons there may be for the United States, Martin Baily and Adriane Fresh dispel the idea that the experience of other countries makes it a waste of time to attempt substantial consolidation of regulatory agencies in the United States.
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Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- September 17, 2009, 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM
On September 17, the Brookings Institution will host Dr. José de Gregorio, governor of the Central Bank of Chile. Governor de Gregorio will outline his views on how best to structure monetary policy and regulatory frameworks in emerging markets to promote macroeconomic and financial stability.
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Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:30:00 GMT
Event Information:
- September 16, 2009, 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM
The collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, combined with the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, helped trigger the worst financial crisis in the United States since the Great Depression. In this week’s edition of the Scouting Report, Douglas Elliott—a former investment banker and current fellow at Brookings—answered your questions about the financial crisis and where we stand one year later. Fred Barbash, senior editor at Politico, moderated the discussion.
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Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:21:31 GMT
It’s been one year since the economic crisis hit hard with the failure of Lehman Brothers, which reverberated throughout the financial sector and the world. President Obama gave a speech on Wall Street pressing for financial system reforms to prevent a future similar crisis. Vice President and Economic Studies co-director Karen Dynan evaluates the impact of the government’s intervention over the past year and where we go from here.
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Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Prudent Lending Restored offers suggestions on how we can reform securitization, including a solution to insure the mortgage market against default risk.
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Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- September 15, 2009, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM
This week marks the one-year anniversary of Lehman Brothers' collapse. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered a keynote about the tumultuous events of last September at a Brookings forum on Tuesday. Brookings Vice President Karen Dynan moderated a panel with other experts on the state of financial markets and regulatory reform.
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Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Gary Burtless examines the current state of financial market reform and addresses the importance of a complete overhaul of the financial regulation system in the United States, observing that if the rules of the financial game are not changed by government policymakers, private decision-makers are likely to resume the same bad behavior that gave us last year’s crisis.
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Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT
John L. Thornton, Glenn Hubbard and Hal Scott say that the future of the Federal Reserve as a lender of last resort is in jeopardy. Because the Fed has compromised its economic credibility and political independence during the financial crisis, they argue, the Obama administration should give it full authority to lend against good collateral only but restrict emergency bailout power to the federal Treasury alone.
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Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:39:31 GMT
Since crashing last October, with a continuing free fall for much of the first part of 2009, the stock market has been gradually climbing back up to healthier levels. Douglas Elliott says the market rally is one sign that the economy is stabilizing – at least in the near term.
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Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Financial sector regulation was one of several causes of the financial crisis that has devastated the U.S. economy and spread globally. We can do better than the current bewildering alphabet soup of regulators, says Martin Baily, by simplifying and streamlining regulation into a single micro prudential regulator.
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Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told a Senate panel on Wednesday that economic recovery should begin soon, albeit slowly at first. Martin Baily and New Jersey Republican Congressman Scott Garrett spoke with Ray Suarez about the testimony.
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Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, Alice Rivlin said that financial sector regulators failed to head off the recent crisis because "no one was explicitly charged with spotting the regulatory gaps and perverse incentives that had crept into our rapidly changing financial structure in recent decades." Rivlin outlined regulatory changes that might prevent another catastrophic financial meltdown.
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Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT
The Obama administration recently released a more detailed legislative proposal for its proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). Douglas Elliott believes the proposal appears to retain the intended benefit of a clear focus on consumer protection while addressing seriously the potential for destroying useful financial products. It also aims to prevent the new agency from “empire building.”
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Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:30:00 GMT
Event Information:
- June 23, 2009, 8:30 AM to 11:00 AM
As banking and financial systems in the United States, Europe, and around the world have been shaken to their foundations over the past two years, Canada’s banking and overall financial system has proven sound and stable. On June 23, Brookings and the Woodrow Wilson Center's Canada Institute will host an examination of Canada’s overall financial system, particularly its approach to financial market regulation, and explore potential lessons for other countries.
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Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Dougals Elliott and others weigh in on the Obama administration's new consumer protection proposal on PBS's The Business Desk with Paul Soloman.
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Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT
President Obama’s financial reform proposals are all sensible, necessary reforms. Unfortunately, some bolder steps have been left out due to the expectation of intense opposition from entrenched interests, says Douglas Elliott. He analyzes the administration’s plan, including parts that he believes did not go far enough.
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Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT
The long-awaited Obama administration plan to reform financial regulation has arrived. The good news, says Douglas Elliott, is that the specific proposals are virtually all sensible and constructive. The bad news is that there were some missed opportunities.
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Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT
The economy is showing signs that it is likely bottoming out and heading toward a weak recovery, but we need to keep our optimism—and our policy actions—in check, argue Martin Baily and Douglas Elliott. Many risks remain for both the banking system and the larger economy, and they argue for increased focus on existing financial rescue plans and the banking sector.
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Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT
The Treasury Department has cleared the way for 10 big banks to start repaying $68.3 billion in taxpayer aid. The administration, however, plans to introduce new compensation guidelines that would apply to financial companies, including those that returned taxpayer money. What new federal restrictions, if any, should be imposed on the banks leaving TARP? More broadly, does this move by the Treasury Department show that its financial recovery programs are working? Douglas Elliott and other experts discuss these issues.
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Tue, 12 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT
All in all, the stress tests were useful and the results were encouraging, says Douglas Elliott. However, we have a lot of pain to get through before this crisis is over. If we're lucky, he says, it will remain bad for awhile. If we're unlucky, it could still get extremely ugly.
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Mon, 11 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Although there was good news from the Fed’s recent “stress tests” on the 19 largest banks, it is important to not take excessive comfort from what remains essentially a highly educated guess as to the future of the banks in a very uncertain environment, says Douglas Elliott. While we may well have turned the corner, we can be far from certain that the solvency crisis in banking is over.
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Fri, 08 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Doug Elliott analyzes the banking regulator’s stress test results by comparing them with other detailed analyses of the financial state and prospects of the banks, finding that the government's assumptions are more conservative than the IMF's, but less than the pessimists'. But he notes the real stress test will be comfortably surviving 2009 and 2010.
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Fri, 08 May 2009 13:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- May 08, 2009, 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM
Since the passage of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, officials have struggled to get ahead of the evolving financial crisis. The Initiative on Business and Public Policy at Brookings hosted a conversation with Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn), a member of the Senate Banking Committee, to discuss the federal response to both the financial crisis and the broader economic downturn.
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Wed, 06 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT
In testimony to the Senate Banking Committee, Martin Baily and Robert Litan discussed the "too big to fail" conundrum, saying large institutions are necessary but must be regulated in a way that at least partially offsets the risks they pose to the rest of the financial system. They also say Congress needs to provide more Treasury TARP funds, maybe on a large scale, but that such a move will ultimately cost less than bank nationalization.
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Mon, 04 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT
The Obama administration has released the long-awaited results of the bank stress tests, saying some have enough capital to weather the recession, while others receive a regulatory blessing. Douglas Elliott says there is some good news, but not to overinterpret until we know the tests’ rigor. The real stress test will be making it through 2009 and 2010 without losing too much money.
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Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT
The Obama administration and Congress are working rapidly to design a new regulatory architecture for the nation’s financial system. “They might consider taking a page or two from a model next door—Canada,” write Pietro Nivola and John C. Courtney, as they explore why the Canadian banking system remains solvent and solid amid the current global crisis.
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Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Several prominent economists continue to push for the government to nationalize the nation’s weakest banks before they bleed the Treasury and taxpayers dry. Douglas Elliott says nationalization is risky and costly and therefore should be the last resort, but policymakers need to be ready in case it is needed. He writes a 15-step “survival manual” with suggestions for minimizing the damage from nationalization, especially the costs to taxpayers.
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Mon, 20 Apr 2009 09:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- April 20, 2009, 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM
Moving the economy toward sustainable long-term economic growth requires a more complete understanding of not only the root causes of the economic crisis, but both how it spread first to the financial sector and then to the real economy. On April 20, Brookings’s Initiative on Business and Public Policy hosted a discussion to explore Wall Street's role in triggering the economic crisis and the role Wall Street leaders may play in leading us out.
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Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Close political ties between Wall Street and the government played a sizeable role in creating a regulatory environment in which financial institutions became dangerously over-exposed to risk. Wall Street firms whose behavior helped create the world-wide crisis are now working diligently to prevent regulatory changes that can help restore the financial system to long-term health, notes Gary Burtless. However, he disagrees with some observers who say bank nationalization is the answer.
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Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Barry Bosworth and Aaron Flaaen summarize some research on the origins of the financial crisis and trace the evolution of the credit panic that hit in late 2008, its impact on the real economy, and the extraordinary policy actions that have been taken to mitigate the economic losses.
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Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT
H. Peyton Young shows that the Geithner proposal for pricing toxic assets is a peculiar type of auction in which the taxpayer is cursed by competition among the buyers. The more that investors compete, the lower are the expected returns for the taxpayers. Naturally, the windfall goes to the banks.
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Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:15:00 GMT
Event Information:
- March 31, 2009, 9:15 AM to 11:30 AM
As public outrage grows over bonuses paid to employees at private firms being bailed out by the government, many are asking whether some companies are "too big to fail" and the consequences of propping up firms at any cost. The Initiative on Business and Public Policy at Brookings hosted Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Gary H. Stern and Vice President Ron J. Feldman to discuss the issue, along with former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.
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Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Robert Litan discusses the Treasury’s six part plan for significantly reducing systemic risk in the financial system. He says the six elements in the Treasury plan, if enacted into law, should significantly reduce the likelihood of single or multiple failures of systemically important financial institutions in the future, as well as the losses to taxpayers for protecting their creditors.
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Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT
The Treasury Department recently released its plan to fix the financial system, which rightly concentrates on reducing systemic risk, argues Robert Litan. While there are legitimate concerns about vesting such large responsibilities with any financial regulator, as long as there are financial institutions whose failure could lead to calamitous financial and economic consequences, then some arm of the federal government must oversee systemic risk and do the best it can to make that oversight work.
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Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT
A number of prominent observers continue to call for a swift nationalization of the nation’s weakest banks. Douglas Elliott argues that while nationalization would provide an appealing emotional catharsis and has some advantages, the harm would be greater. Nationalization would be costly, difficult and risky. Elliott walks through the initial step of taking over a major banking group and demonstrates the problems that lie therein.
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Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s plan announced on Monday to move some $1 trillion in toxic assets off of the balance sheets of the banks helps remove the uncertainty from the financial system although it will not fix the credit crisis on its own, according to Douglas Elliott. Strong concerns remain about whether the Public Private Investment Program (PPIP) will succeed—the program could either fizzle or prove to be too expensive for the taxpayer—but there are also some grounds for hope.
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Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT
In this article Martin Baily and Douglas Elliott discuss what it will take to stabilize the banks. They call for an adequate amount of capital to be injected into the banks and for the troubled assets be moved out of the banks or their impact neutralized. They agree that both of these actions will be very expensive for the taxpayers, involving significant risk of large future losses, but warn that the costs of stabilizing the banks will be very large indeed, and the sooner policymakers face up to that, the better.
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Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT
With large and ongoing government bailouts of AIG, Robert Litan says that any reform of the nation’s financial system should include an update to the nation’s antiquated system of state insurance regulation. He believes that given the taxpayer exposure to the potential failure of large insurers—or those deemed to be “systemically important”—it is time that the federal government oversee all aspects of these operations to assure their continued solvency.
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Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Bank nationalization—the topic du jour in Washington and on Wall Street—means different things to different people. Although nationalization is a serious and extreme step with high social and financial costs, Douglas Elliott believes full nationalization may be needed only as a last resort for one or two of the nation’s larger banks, with more widespread nationalization unlikely. But, he says, it may make sense for the government to partially nationalize additional large banks now, in an effort to bring some certainty to the markets.
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Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:30:00 GMT
Event Information:
- January 08, 2009, 1:30 PM to 3:00 PM
On January 8, the Brookings Institution hosted Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Neel Kashkari for an update on recent actions related to the Treasury Department’s $700 billion financial stability program. Full event audio is available for download.
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Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT
Martin Baily and Robert Litan analyze the long-term implications of recent and proposed government efforts to stabilize the markets and the economy at large. As Congress considers legislation this week, Baily and Litan stress the importance of understanding how and why the dominoes fell, and most important, they advocate important systemic fixes: transparency, institutional liquidity and better oversight and tools given to regulators.
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Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT
Alice Rivlin discusses why the recent rescue of Bear Stearns by the Federal Reserve, was "money well spent." The Fed's actions, she says, were aimed at "protecting the rest of the country—and indeed the world—from the possibly devastating consequences of a financial meltdown."
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Sun, 06 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT
The financial regulatory infrastructure that started during the Civil War is now an "alphabet soup" of agencies, and it suffers from duplication in some areas and gaps in others. Jason Furman provides guidance on how policy-makers can build a more effective and stable financial system.
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Sun, 01 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT
The contributors highlight the innovative way in which Japanese financiers and government officials have learned from the U.S. regarding the introduction of new instruments into their market.
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Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:00:00 GMT
When should government intervene in market activity and when is it best to let market forces take their natural course? How does the existing empirical evidence about government performance guide our answers to these questions? In this clear, concise
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Mon, 01 Nov 2004 00:00:00 GMT
Article by Robert Hahn and Robert E. Litan, The Wall Street Journal Online (11/1/04)
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Sat, 15 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT
Robert E. Litan advocates that policy makers allow the marketplace to determine what combinations of financial services are offered to corporate customers who do not need to be protected by artificial rules that may once have been useful but certainly are no longer.
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Tue, 17 Sep 2002 00:00:00 GMT
Financial Sector Governance takes a clinical approach to addressing the challenges in emerging and developed markets in each industry: capital markets, private banks, state-owned banks, asset management companies, public pension funds, and mut
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Mon, 01 Jul 2002 00:00:00 GMT
Conference Report #12, by Robert E. Litan, Michael Pomerleano, and V. Sundararajan (July 2002)
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Fri, 05 Nov 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Testimony by Robert Reischauer before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee November 5, 1999: Asian Financial Crisis
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Mon, 01 Nov 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Papers by Scholars in the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution
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Wed, 01 Sep 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Brookings Discussion Papers in International Economics, Number 149
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Thu, 15 Jul 1999 00:00:00 GMT
In testimony before the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, U.S. House Committee on Banking and Financial Services, Robert Litan applauds the inclusion of privacy protections in H.R. 10.
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Thu, 01 Jul 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Discussion Papers in International Economics No. 146
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Mon, 01 Jun 1998 00:00:00 GMT
Brookings Review article by Robert D. Hormats, Lawrence Lindsay, and Barry P. Bosworth (Summer 1998)