Law Commons^™

Using The Law To Reduce Systemic Risk, Bernard S. Sharfman

Bernard S Sharfman

The recently enacted Dodd-Frank Act will have a major impact on how the financial sector operates. For example, the Act will prohibit banking entities from engaging in the ‘proprietary trading” of financial instruments unrelated to customer-driven business. Surely, this and other provisions found in the Act will help reduce the financial sector’s proclivity for creating systemic risk.

However, the approach taken in the Act to reduce systemic risk is incomplete. The problem is that it is backward-looking. The Act does not take into consideration that, if history is any guide, financial innovation will lead to the development of new financial …