Law Commons^™

Taking Systemic Risk Seriously In Financial Regulation, Todd Henderson, James C. Spindler

Indiana Law Journal

Bank regulation failed in the run up to the financial crisis of2008, as it has numerous times in the course of U.S. history. This is despite the existence of traditional prudential regulation, such as capital adequacy mandates, reserve requirements, and bank examination, as well as more common legal remedies, such as tort and contract litigation. Unsurprisingly, in the wake of these failures, many reforms have been proposed, and some adopted, to try to reduce bank risk taking. These reforms include limiting bank size, requiring bank managers to be paid differently, restricting investment in high-risk financial products, and, of course, tightening …

Bank Capital Regulation By Enforcement: An Empirical Study, Julie A. Hill

Indiana Law Journal

Improving commercial bank capital requirements has been a top priority on the regulatory agenda since the beginning of the 2008 financial crisis. Unfortunately, some of the information necessary to make informed decisions about capital regulation has been missing. Existing regulations establish numerical capital requirements. Regulators, however, have significant discretion to set higher capital requirements for individual banks. In considering necessary reforms, regulators often focus on specific numerical requirements but sometimes ignore enforcement efforts. Without clear information about capital enforcement, it is impossible to make informed judgments about the current capital regulation system.

This Article provides a more complete picture of …