Law Commons^™

The Capital Commons: A Plan For Building Back Better And Beyond, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

To build our Republic back better we must build our banks better. The overwhelmingly greater part of our investment capital is now publicly generated yet privately managed. But pervasive and still underappreciated recursive collective action predicaments endemic to all exchange economies, combined with the decoupling of profits from production made possible by stratified capital ‘markets’ in such economies, render this unsustainable.

The only way to get public capital allocation right, and thus to get credit modulation and long-term productive investment right, is to manage public capital publicly and private capital privately. This paper shows how to do that through the …

Don't End Or Audit The Fed: Central Bank Independence In An Age Of Austerity, Neil H. Buchanan, Michael C. Dorf

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The Federal Reserve (the Fed) is the central bank of the United States. Because of its power and importance in guiding the economy, the Fed's independence from direct political influence has made it a target of ideologically motivated attacks throughout its history, with an especially aggressive round of attacks coming in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and ongoing today. We defend Fed independence. We point to the Fed's exemplary performance during and after the 2008 crisis, and we offer the example of a potential future crisis in which Congress falls to increase the debt ceiling to show how …