Law Commons^™

Private Wealth And Public Goods: A Case For A National Investment Authority, Robert C. Hockett, Saule T. Omarova

Robert C. Hockett

Much American electoral and policy debate now centers on how best to reignite the nation’s economic dynamism and rebuild its competitive strength. Any such undertaking presents an extraordinary challenge, demanding a correspondingly extraordinary institutional response. This Article proposes precisely such a response. It designs and advocates a new public instrumentality--a National Investment Authority (“NIA”)--charged with the critical task of devising and implementing a comprehensive long-term development strategy for the United States.

Patterned in part after the New Deal-era Reconstruction Finance Corporation, in part after modern sovereign wealth funds, and in part after private equity and venture capital firms, the NIA …

Money's Past Is Fintech's Future: Wildcat Crypto, The Digital Dollar, And Citizen Central Banking, Robert C. Hockett

Robert C. Hockett

This Essay argues that crypto-currencies will soon go the way of the ‘wildcat’ banknotes of the mid-19th century. As central banks worldwide upgrade their payments systems, the Fed will begin issuing a ‘digital dollar’ that leaves no licit function for what the Author calls ‘wildcat crypto.’ But the imminent change heralds more than a shakeout in fintech. It will also make possible a new era of what the Author calls ‘Citizen Central Banking.’ The Fed will administer a national system of ‘Citizen Accounts.’ This will not only end the problem of the ‘unbanked,’ it will also simplify monetary policy. Instead …

"Special," Vestigial, Or Visionary? What Bank Regulation Tells Us About The Corporation - And Vice Versa, Robert C. Hockett, Saule T. Omarova

Robert C. Hockett

A remarkable yet seldom noted set of parallels exists between modern U.S. bank regulation, on the one hand, and what used to be garden-variety American corporate law, on the other hand. For example, just as bank charters are matters not of right but of conditional privilege even today, so were all corporate charters not long ago. Just as chartered banks are authorized to engage only in limited, enumerated activities even to- day, so were all corporations restricted not long ago. And just as banks are subject to strict capital regulation even today, so were all corporations not long ago. In …

Debt, Deflation, And Debacle: Of Private Debt Write-Down And Public Recovery, Richard W. Vague, Robert C. Hockett

Robert C. Hockett

Most public discussion of the world’s continuing financial and macroeconomic troubles focuses rightly on debt. It focuses wrongly, however, on public debt. The real source of our ills is global-trade-related private debt overhang among millions of households below the top of the wealth distribution in the “developed” world. That is the provenance of both (a) the asset price bubbles and busts in whose aftermath we still struggle, and (b) the fact that we’re still struggling. Public sector debt growth in the developed world since 2009 is merely a symptom – the product of thus far failed treatment – of this …

The Macroprudential Turn: From Institutional 'Safety And Soundness' To Systematic 'Financial Stability' In Financial Supervision, Robert C. Hockett

Robert C. Hockett

Since the global financial dramas of 2008-09, authorities on financial regulation have come increasingly to counsel the inclusion of macroprudential policy instruments in the standard ‘toolkit’ of finance-regulatory measures employed by financial supervisors. The hallmark of this perspective is its focus not simply on the safety and soundness of individual financial institutions, as is characteristic of the traditional ‘microprudential’ perspective, but also on certain structural features of financial systems that can imperil such systems as wholes. Systemic ‘financial stability’ thus comes to supplement, though not to supplant, institutional ‘safety and soundness’ as a regulatory desideratum. The move from primarily micro- …

Insource The Shareholding Of Outsourced Employees: A Global Stock Ownership Plan, Robert C. Hockett

Robert C. Hockett

With the American economy stalled and another federal election campaign season well underway, the “outsourcing” of American jobs is again on the public agenda. Latest figures indicate not only that claims for joblessness benefits are up, but also that the rate of American job-exportation has more than doubled since the last electoral cycle. This year’s political candidates have been quick to take note. In consequence, more than at any time since the early 1990s, continued American participation in the World Trade Organization, in the North American Free Trade Agreement, and in the processes of global economic integration more generally appear …

Materializing Citizenship: Finance In A Producers' Republic, Robert C. Hockett

Robert C. Hockett

This invited essay critically assesses a movement of which I consider myself to be part – the movement to “redemocratize” financial institutions in a manner that restores, to non-wealthy citizens, access to basic financial services comparable to those enjoyed by wealthy citizens. I argue that while financial redemocratization of this sort is necessary to the larger project from which it draws most of its meaning – viz that of redemocratizing access to the resources requisite to productive enterprise and meaningful citizenship more generally – it is far from sufficient to this task. We must therefore take special care not to …

Paying Paul And Robbing No One: An Eminent Domain Solution For Underwater Mortgage Debt, Robert C. Hockett

Robert C. Hockett

In the view of many analysts, the best way to assist “underwater” homeowners — those who owe more on their mortgages than their houses are worth — is to reduce the principal on their home loans. Yet in the case of privately securitized mortgages, such write-downs are almost impossible to carry out, since loan modifications on the scale necessitated by the housing market crash would require collective action by a multitude of geographically dispersed security holders. The solution, this study suggests, is for state and municipal governments to use their eminent domain powers to buy up and restructure underwater mortgages, …

“Private” Means To “Public” Ends: Governments As Market Actors, Robert C. Hockett, Saule T. Omarova

Robert C. Hockett

Many people recognize that governments can play salutary roles in relation to markets by (a) “overseeing” market behavior from “above,” or (b) supplying foundational “rules of the game” from “below.” It is probably no accident that these widely recognized roles also sit comfortably with traditional conceptions of government and market, pursuant to which people tend categorically to distinguish between “public” and “private” spheres of activity. There is a third form of government action that receives less attention than forms (a) and (b), however, possibly owing in part to its straddling the traditional public/private divide. We call it the “government as …

The Macroprudential Turn: From Institutional “Safety And Soundness” To “Systemic Stability” In Financial Supervision, Robert C. Hockett

Robert C. Hockett

This Working Paper is no longer available. The published version of this article is available at: http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/facpub/1405/ Since the global financial dramas of 2008-09, authorities on financial regulation have come increasingly to counsel the inclusion of macroprudential policy instruments in the standard ‘toolkit’ of finance-regulatory measures employed by financial supervisors. The hallmark of this perspective is its focus not simply on the safety and soundness of individual financial institutions, as is characteristic of the traditional ‘microprudential’ perspective, but also on certain structural features of financial systems that can imperil such systems as wholes. Systemic ‘financial stability’ thus comes to supplement, …

Domestic Bank Regulation In A Global Environment - A Comparative Dialogue, Robert C. Hockett

Robert C. Hockett

No abstract provided.