Law Commons^™

From Fedspeak To Forward Guidance: Regulatory Dimensions Of Central Bank Communications, Robert B. Ahdieh

Robert B. Ahdieh

In the face of the financial crisis that engulfed the globe beginning in 2007, the U.S. Federal Reserve quickly found itself without the key lever of monetary policy on which it had traditionally relied: short-term interest rate adjustments designed to move long-term rates, and thereby expected levels of lending, investment, and capital retention. By late 2008, short-term rates were already close to zero, yet unemployment remained strikingly high – with no sign of any likely renewal of bank lending or commercial investment.

Famously, the Fed embraced so-called quantitative easing – the purchase of massive volumes of public and private debt …

Collaborative Gatekeepers, Stavros Gadinis, Colby Mangels University Of California - Berkeley

Stavros Gadinis

In their efforts to hold financial institutions accountable after the 2007 financial crisis, U.S. regulators have repeatedly turned to anti-money-laundering laws. Initially designed to fight drug cartels and terrorists, these laws have recently yielded billion-dollar fines for all types of bank engagement in fraud and have spurred an overhaul of financial institutions’ internal compliance. This increased reliance on anti-money-laundering laws, we argue, is due to distinct features that can better help regulators gain insights into financial fraud. Most other financial laws enlist private firms as gatekeepers and hold them liable if they knowingly or negligently engage in client fraud. Yet, …

Comment On The Cfpb's Policy On No-Action Letters, David J. Reiss, K. Sabeel Rahman, Jeffrey Lederman

David J Reiss

This is a comment on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (the “Bureau”) proposed Policy on No-Action Letters (the “Policy”). The Policy is a step in the right direction, but a more robust Policy could better help the Bureau achieve its statutory purposes.

The Bureau recognizes that there are situations in which consumer financial service businesses (“Businesses”) are uncertain as to the applicability of laws and rules related to new financial products (“Products”); how regulatory provisions might be applied to their Products; and what potential enforcement actions could be brought against them by regulatory agencies for noncompliance. Businesses could therefore benefit …

Dodd-Frank Regulators, Cost-Benefit Analysis, And Agency Capture, Paul Rose, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) has raised the stakes for financial regulation by requiring more than twenty federal agencies to promulgate nearly 400 new rules. Scholars, regulated entities, Congress, courts, and the agencies themselves have all recognized — even before Dodd-Frank — the lack of rigorous cost-benefit analysis in the context of financial rulemaking. The D.C. Circuit has struck down several financial regulations because of inadequate cost-benefit analysis, with three more challenges to be decided this summer. Members of Congress have introduced legislation to address this problem, including a call for the President to intervene …

Functional Government In 3-D, Robert L. Glicksman, Alejandro E. Camacho

Robert L. Glicksman

The creation of new administrative agencies and the realignment of existing governmental authority are commonplace and high-stakes events, as illustrated by the recent creation of the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11 and of new financial regulatory agencies after the global recession of 2009. Scholars and policymakers have not devoted sufficient attention to this subject, failing to clearly identify the different dimensions along which government authority may be structured or to consider the relationships among them. Analysis of these institutional design issues typically also gives short shrift to whether authority should be allocated differently based on agency function. These failures …