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Regulating Shadows: Financial Regulation And Responsibility Failure , Steven L. Schwarcz

Washington and Lee Law Review

In the modern financial architecture, financial services and products increasingly are provided outside of the traditional banking system—and thus without the need for bank intermediation between capital markets and the users of funds. Most corporate financing, for example, no longer is dependent on bank loans but is raised through special-purpose entities, money- market mutual funds, securiti es lenders, hedge funds, and investment banks. This shift, referred to as “disintermediation” and described as creating a “shadow banking” system, is transforming finance so radically that regulatory scholars need to rethink their assumptions. Two of the fundamental market failures underlying shadow banking—information failure …