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Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Greenhouse Governance features a number of America's preeminent public policy scholars, examining some aspect of governance and climate change.
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Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), which protects the pensions of 44 million workers, announced a $22 billion deficit for fiscal year ending September 2009. Douglas Elliott analyzes the three main reasons for the PBGC’s financial troubles, and cautions that there are serious structural problems within PBGC that cannot be blamed on the financial crisis.
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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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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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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, 28 Jul 2009 18:15:42 GMT
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation ensures the retirement funds of nearly 44 million American workers and retirees, and now plans to assume responsibility for the pension plans of 70,000 GM workers. Lawmakers are concerned about PBGC's growing deficit, which has tripled to roughly $33.5 billion in six months. Douglas Elliott says they have good reason to be worried, given the current economy.
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Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s deficit tripled over the last six months and could top out at more than $100 billion. According to Douglas Elliott, this accelerated loss is the result of a combination of factors, including the PBGC’s inability—thanks to Congress—to charge premium rates that would cover its risk, and the investment and funding choices made by the companies that sponsor the pension plans insured by the PBGC. Is another massive bailout in store?
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Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT
As Chrysler and GM face bankruptcy proceedings and restructuring, the Senate held a hearing on whether the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) has the capacity to insure the pensions of nearly 44 million Americans who work or have worked at those firms. Douglas Elliott explores the particulars of the PBGC, the precarious situation that the automotive industry finds itself in, and offers 14 possible solutions to the problems that plague the government’s pension program.
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Tue, 12 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT
The Obama administration’s breakthrough with the health care industry to cut costs is eerily reminiscent of the 1970s, according to Henry Aaron. Then, as today, health care spending was outpacing income growth and the industry promised to voluntarily to rein in the growth. If we are to learn from history, rather than simply repeat it, he says, there are some simple but vitally important lessons.
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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, 07 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Alice Rivlin joined bigthink.com to discuss how businesses can succeed in a new regulatory environment.
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Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT
This perceptive book emphasizes the need for an overall analytical framework that can be applied to different countries to help analyze the current situation, identify potential areas for improvement, and assess their relative feasibility and the steps needed to promote them.
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Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Given the jerky path of the bailout efforts by two administrations over the past 18 months, it isn’t surprising others would want a crack. Robert Litan and Martin Baily say the teetering U.S. regulatory system is the place to start fixing. The Wall Street Journal talked with Litan to find out why the stimulus should start with regulators.
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Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT
This important book examines the role that the U.S. government can and should play
in promoting the widespread use of plug-in electric vehicles.
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Wed, 14 Jan 2009 09:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- January 14, 2009, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Abstract ideas are not patentable, but what are abstract ideas – and how can judges draw a line around them? At a conference, co-sponsored by the Brookings Institution, the Computer & Communications Industry Association and Duke University School of Law, experts looked at the problem of abstract patents from both economic and legal perspectives. How well do abstract patents work? What problems do they create? Can we do better than the standard in Bilski?
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Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT
America faces a profoundly altered financial landscape and a rapidly shifting world economic order. To meet the challenges of maintaining strong domestic economic growth and restoring global financial stability, we need a national agenda that tackles a broad range of domestic economic policy issues and promotes constructive engagement with the global economy.
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Fri, 09 Jan 2009 10:30:00 GMT
Event Information:
- January 09, 2009, 10:30 AM to 12:00 PM
America faces enormous challenges in restoring financial stability, reviving economic growth and dealing with the shifting balance of world economic power. On January 9, Eswar Prasad will offer a public memo to President-elect Obama with recommendations on how to restore global financial stability, move America's economy forward and usher in a new era of global cooperation.
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Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:04:14 GMT
President Bush will meet with a host of G20 international leaders in mid-November to work on overhauling global financial systems. The hope is to establish international protocols to prevent a repeat of the current global economic crisis. Senior Fellow Ralph Bryant says the summit is a good idea but is not hopeful that it will yield any immediate results.
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Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT
In a recent National Academy of Science workshop, Andrew Reamer reviews the array of mandates that Congress has given the White House Office of Management and Budget to maintain data repositories and publish reports on federal expenditures—including grants and contracts—by geography.
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Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT
The current lump-sum pricing of auto insurance is inefficient and inequitable. In a discussion paper for The Hamilton Project Jason E. Bordoff and Pascal J. Noel propose Pay-As-You-Drive auto insurance as a more effecient means of pricing for the auto insurance industry.
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Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:30:00 GMT
Event Information:
- June 05, 2008, 9:30 AM to 12:00 PM
Hurricanes, retirement, home-buying and tax-base erosion all pose financial risks. Yet markets to reduce these risks are elusive. The Hamilton Project at Brookings released papers at a discussion on how sound public policy can play a critical role in helping to foster new markets or expand existing markets in ways that could provide widely shared benefits.
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Fri, 16 May 2008 00:00:00 GMT
With the U.S. financial system still in a perilous state, Martin Baily, Doug Elmendorf and Bob Litan diagnose what caused the crisis and offer prescriptions for policy change. The authors of this new Brookings paper address two challenges: to resolve the immediate problems and to reduce the likelihood that these problems recur.
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Fri, 16 May 2008 10:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- May 16, 2008, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM
How could America's sophisticated financial system go so wrong and cause so much damage? Martin Baily, Douglas Elmendorf and Robert Litan answered that question in a new paper released at this public forum. The authors, following opening remarks by FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair, put forward a specific agenda of policy actions to reduce the chance that history repeats itself.
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Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 GMT
Even though billions of dollars of mortgage-related loses have yet to be declared, Doug Elemendorf offered Joint Economic Committee members four principles to guide reform of the troubled financial system. His diagnosis and prescriptions are based on a new Brookings report to be released Friday.
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Thu, 01 May 2008 12:00:00 GMT
International transportation experts compare and contrast how different nations have managed their airports and air traffic control systems and how well they are meeting the needs of their people.
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Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT
This fall the United States will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 and, Clifford Winston and Steven Morrison argue, the nation has reason to celebrate because airline deregulation has benefited both travelers and carriers.
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Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT
Flights on U.S. airlines have never been more crowded, but despite recent reports, Clifford Winston and Robert Crandall argue, U.S. airlines have never been safer.
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Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:10:42 GMT
Few industries remain subject to classic economic regulation in the United States. Senior Fellow Robert Crandall says the next president should help remove some of the controls left on these industries in order to help promote economic expansion.
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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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Sat, 01 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT
Jason Bordoff presents a plan for "pay-as-you-drive" car insurance, a win-win policy—good for society and good for most drivers—that makes significant progress on climate change, congestion and other driving-related harms and is more equitable at the same time, all while reducing insurance costs for the majority of drivers.
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Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Hahn identifies key issues that will affect future ethanol support and suggests how politics could affect the development of sensible energy and climate policies in general. He offers some suggestions for more cost-effective development of energy alternatives that would enhance energy security and environmental quality.
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Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT
Economists have long recognized that certainty of contract is essential to a healthy economy. Long-term forward contracts, in particular, help reduce financial risk. Those contracts can only accomplish that goal, however, if parties know the contracts will be enforced. Brookings Robert Hahn and other economists take a look at Supreme Court's Morgan Stanley Capital Group Inc. v. Public Utility case of Snohomish County, Washington case.
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Thu, 08 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT
Robert Crandall discusses telecommunications regulatory policies in the European Union and critiques a proposal to enforce functional separation on the broadband market.
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Mon, 22 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT
At a meeting of the National Grants Partnership, Andrew Reamer reviews the array of mandates that Congress has given the White House Office of Management and Budget to maintain data repositories and publish reports on federal expenditures—including grants and contracts—by geography. He identifies eight core mandates and discusses the current, and troubled, status of each.
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Fri, 28 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT
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Thu, 06 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Crandall and Hal J. Singer argue against new CAFE standards on Detroit automakers being considered by Congress.
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Wed, 11 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT
Robert Crandall and Hal Singer argue that, eventually, either the FCC or the courts will realize that regulating competitive telecommunications networks for the benefit of select content providers is not in the interest of American consumers.
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Wed, 27 Jun 2007 00:00:00 GMT
Opinion by Robert Hahn and Hal Singer (06/27/07)
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Fri, 01 Jun 2007 00:00:00 GMT
This paper critically reviews the draft of the Office of Management and Budget's tenth report on the benefits and costs of federal regulations. The draft report is similar to previous reports, and does not break new ground.
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Fri, 11 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT
Op-ed by Robert Hahn and Paul Tetlock (05/11/07)
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Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT
Network Neutrality Policy
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Wed, 28 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT
Since the 1970s, deregulation has succeeded in increasing overall economic welfare and sharply reducing prices, generally by about 30 percent, for transportation—including air travel, rail transportation, and trucking—and for natural gas and telecommunications. Few industries remain subject to classic economic regulation in the United States.
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Thu, 01 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT
Paper by Robert Hahn (February 2007)
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Wed, 31 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Hahn and Robert E. Litan agree that the president’s executive order on regulation is a step in the right direction, but the order should take a more significant step by subjecting all federal regulatory agencies to the same kind of discipline that the executive order requires of executive agencies.
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Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT
Urjit Patel describes Indian regulation of natural gas markets in Business Standard
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Mon, 18 Dec 2006 00:00:00 GMT
Robert Crandall and Clifford Winston argue that policy-makers take the wrong approach in opposing recent merger attempts in the airline industry. While enforcement of antitrust laws can improve consumer welfare in some cases, Crandall and Winston conclude that government efforts to prevent such mergers "do little to improve consumer welfare and sometimes actually reduce it."
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Tue, 01 Aug 2006 00:00:00 GMT
Environmentally related taxes are increasingly used in OECD countries, and ample evidence of their effectiveness is now available. Great potential for wider use of these environmental policy instruments remains, however, provided they are well design
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Sat, 17 Jun 2006 00:00:00 GMT
Robert E. Litan suggests enabling the Federal Trade Commission to monitor and pre-empt laws to ensure that real estate markets are competitive.
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Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:00:00 GMT
Robert Hahn and Robert Litan critically review the government's proposed risk assessment guidelines.
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Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Hahn and Robert E. Litan critically review the draft of the Office of Management and Budget’s ninth report on the benefits and costs of federal regulation.
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Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:00:00 GMT
Robert E. Litan examines the artificial barriers that prevent banks and other financial service firms from competing.
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Tue, 30 May 2006 00:00:00 GMT
Web Opinion by Ben Klemens
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Tue, 02 May 2006 00:00:00 GMT
Article by Robert Litan, Washington Post (5/2/06)
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Mon, 01 May 2006 00:00:00 GMT
Clifford Winston, Vikram Maheshri and Fred Mannering find that safety-conscious drivers are more likely than other drivers to acquire airbags and antilock brakes but these safety devices do not have a significant effect on collisions or injuries, suggesting drivers trade off enhanced safety for speedier trips.
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Mon, 01 May 2006 00:00:00 GMT
Kenneth E. Train and Clifford Winston attempt to shed light on the U.S. automaker industry’s predicament by applying econometric advances to analyze the vehicle choices of American consumers.
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Wed, 15 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT
In this statement, a group of economists make the following recommendations to improve the competitive provision of broadband services.
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Wed, 15 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT
Robert L. Axtell and Gregory J. McRae argue that exponential discounting of many benefit streams—particularly non-pecuniary ones—fails the 'data quality' test and should be abandoned in favor of empirically-observed hyperbolic discounting.
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Wed, 15 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT
Kenneth A. Small, Clifford Winston and Jia Yan design a differentiated road pricing scheme that fills in the gap between optimal but socially unpopular first-best pricing and pragmatic but less efficient policies like carpool or HOT lanes.
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Thu, 08 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT
Deregulation of U.S. industry has been such a controversial issue for the past few decades that it is perhaps understandable that people do not realize that one deregulatory initiative — the 1980 Staggers Act that deregulated the rail freight industry — surprisingly turned out to benefit both consumers and the industry.
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Thu, 01 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT
This lively and innovative book is about computer code and the legal controls and restrictions on those who write it. Drawing on a host of examples, Ben Klemens describes and analyzes the intellectual property issues involved in the development of co
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Sat, 15 Oct 2005 00:00:00 GMT
Clifford Winston assesses how railroads and shippers have fared after 25 years of deregulation, and suggests that deregulation has also turned out to be a great boon for shippers as rail carriers have passed on some of their cost savings to them in lower rates and significantly improved service times and reliability.
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Sat, 15 Oct 2005 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Hahn and Robert E. Litan review how the real estate industry is being challenged by new sources of competition and how antitrust regulators are zeroing in on what is viewed as anti-competitive practices.
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Wed, 28 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT
Steven Morrison and Clifford Winston testify before a House committee that the airline industry's financial problems are broadly associated with the industry’s long-term adjustment to airline deregulation. They propose ways that policy-makers can allow the industry to be more efficient and benefit the public.
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Thu, 28 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT
Opinion by Ben Klemens (7/28/05)
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Thu, 21 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMT
Opinion by William G. Gale, The Washington Examiner (7/21/05)
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Wed, 15 Jun 2005 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Hahn, Robert E. Litan and Jesse Gurman provide an economic analysis of the residential real estate brokerage industry.
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Mon, 23 May 2005 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Crandall and Clifford Winston argue that trade protection can no longer shield the U.S. auto producers from foreign efficiency.
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Fri, 15 Apr 2005 00:00:00 GMT
In Competition and Chaos, Robert W. Crandall analyzes the impact of the 1996 Telecommunications Act on economic welfare in the United States and how the act and its antecedents affected the major telecommunications providers.
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Fri, 15 Apr 2005 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Hahn, Robert E. Litan and Rohit Malik critically review the draft of the Office of Management and Budget's eighth report on the benefits and costs of federal regulation.
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Tue, 15 Mar 2005 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Crandall reviews the telecommunication regulatory debate with a merger proposal from the two largest companies.
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Tue, 15 Feb 2005 00:00:00 GMT
Kenneth A. Small, Clifford Winston and Jia Yan suggest that road pricing policies designed to cater to varying preferences can improve efficiency and reduce the disparity of welfare impacts compared with recent pricing experiments.
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Tue, 14 Dec 2004 00:00:00 GMT
In his presentation, Robert W. Crandall argues that regulators should be required to "open up" the local market through mandated unbundling, allowing entrants an entry toe-hold on the way to facilities-based competition.
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Wed, 01 Dec 2004 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Crandall, Robert W. Hahn, Robert E. Litan, and Scott Wallsten examine whether there is a need to regulate Voice over Internet Protocol.
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Mon, 01 Nov 2004 00:00:00 GMT
An overhaul of the widely-recognized metropolitan classification system by the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will refashion the both research and federal spending.
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Fri, 15 Oct 2004 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Hahn and Robert E. Litan review the U.S. and European experiences with regulatory oversight and the use of formal tools to analyze regulation. They conclude that the U.S. and Europe have made some progress in improving regulatory analysis and oversight, but they can do much more.
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Wed, 15 Sep 2004 00:00:00 GMT
Economists argue that there is no clear economic rationale for regulating interstate shipments of wine.
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Wed, 15 Sep 2004 11:45:00 GMT
Event Information:
- September 15, 2004, 11:45 AM to 2:00 PM
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Wed, 08 Sep 2004 17:30:00 GMT
Event Information:
- September 08, 2004, 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM
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Wed, 01 Sep 2004 00:00:00 GMT
Conference Report #18 by Gerard Caprio, Jonathan Fiechter, Robert E. Litan and Michael Pomerleano. (September 2004)
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Tue, 25 May 2004 00:00:00 GMT
Gregg Easterbrook discusses the federal gasoline tax.
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Sat, 15 May 2004 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Hahn and Robert E. Litan critically review the draft of the Office of Management and Budget’s seventh report on the benefits and costs of federal regulation.
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Sat, 15 May 2004 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Crandall discusses Charles Ferguson’s book that advocates a major increase in government intervention in the U.S. market for high-speed, "broadband" Internet services.
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Sat, 15 May 2004 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Crandall, Robert W. Hahn, Robert E. Litan, and Scott Wallsten discuss the important distinction between the economical and the uneconomical provision of broadband.
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Thu, 15 Apr 2004 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Crandall and Clifford Winston review the literature and assesses the effects of antitrust policy and enforcement on consumer welfare.
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Mon, 15 Dec 2003 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Crandall argues that the government should not try to break up telecommunication companies to make the industry more competitive, but instead, the government should let the companies compete among themselves for customers.
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Mon, 15 Dec 2003 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Hahn and Robert E. Litan suggest meeting certain quality standards to improve the quality of regulation and make the regulatory process more transparent.
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Wed, 15 Oct 2003 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Hahn and Robert E. Litan argue that Congress should increase funding for the Office of Management and Budget or American consumers will bear the brunt of less effective, less transparent, and more expensive regulation.
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Mon, 15 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT
Robert E. Litan reviews a study of North Carolina’s anti-predatory lending law.
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Fri, 05 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT
In this book, noted scholars with divergent opinions examine the impact and validity of the Justice Departments actions against several significant corporations that rely on financial, transportation, and electronic networks to support their busines
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Fri, 01 Aug 2003 00:00:00 GMT
Policy Brief #122 by Pietro S. Nivola (August 2003).
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Mon, 21 Jul 2003 00:00:00 GMT
Chapter from ""Competition and Regulation in Utility Markets"" by Robert W. Crandall (7/21/03)
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Tue, 15 Jul 2003 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Hahn, Robert E. Litan, and Roger G. Noll assess some important economic consequences of the Federal Trade Commission's approach to strategic planning.
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Sun, 15 Jun 2003 00:00:00 GMT
John E. Calfee, Clifford Winston, and Randolph Stempski try to understand why pharmaceutical companies have quadrupled advertising spending since the 1997 FDA rule, making branded direct-to-consumer advertising a new and expensive competitive tool for prescription drug manufacturers.
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Fri, 25 Apr 2003 08:30:00 GMT
Event Information:
- April 25, 2003, 8:30 AM to 10:30 AM
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Tue, 15 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Hahn and Robert E. Litan critically review the draft of the Office of Management and Budget's sixth report on the benefits and costs of federal regulation.
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Tue, 01 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT
The revelation of corporate scandals and the financial crises in the developing countries have persuaded many people around the world that "Enronitis," in its various guises, can seriously damage people's confidence in a financial system and retard economic development. Shang-Jin Wei and Heather Milkiewicz argue that an invigorated, worldwide reform effort will reduce the chance of future economic devastation that could result from poor public and corporate governance.
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Sat, 15 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Hahn and Robert E. Litan testify before the House Government Reform Committee and provide recommendations that would hold lawmakers and regulators more accountable.
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Sat, 15 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT
Robert W. Hahn and Robert E. Litan believe the Office of Management and Budget's draft guidelines for economic analysis represent a step forward, but that agencies should be encouraged to do benefit-cost analysis when the information is available to do it.
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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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Sat, 01 Mar 2003 00:00:00 GMT
The revelation of corporate scandals and the financial crises in the developing countries have persuaded many people around the world that "Enronitis," in its various guises, can seriously damage people's confidence in a financial system and retard economic development. Shang-Jin Wei and Heather Milkiewicz argue that an invigorated, worldwide reform effort will reduce the chance of future economic devastation that could result from poor public and corporate governance.