The Volcker Rule: Financial Crisis, Bailouts, and the Need for Financial Regulation

Author(s):  
Dylan Minor ◽  
Nicola Persico

In response to the potential collapse of large financial institutions in 2007, the U.S. government committed trillions of dollars to loans, asset purchases, guarantees, direct spending to provide fiscal stimulus, expansionary monetary policy, and bailouts of various private financial institutions. The bailouts were especially controversial because public money was used to protect private financial institutions and their wealthy executives while ordinary citizens received no such protection. One outcome of the government's response was the proposal to enact into law the Volcker rule, which prohibited banks from engaging in proprietary trading, or trading for their own---not their clients'---benefit. Proprietary trading was believed to generate up to 10 percent of total trading revenues, which would have exceeded $5.9 billion in 2010 for the six largest American banks alone. If the Volcker rule were to become law, government agencies, including the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the FDIC, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, would write the detailed regulations that would implement the law. These agencies employed civil servants but were run by political appointees with technical backgrounds. After issuing a notice of proposed rulemaking the agencies would solicit comments from the public, which would help shape the regulations. Executives of large banks needed to decide how to respond to this potential change in their business environment.After analyzing the case, students should be able to: Understand and map out the various interests at work in shaping a regulation Develop a nonmarket strategy for a company facing a potential regulatory change Predict the likely outcome of a proposed regulation

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1904
Author(s):  
Fatema Khairunnessa ◽  
Diego A. Vazquez-Brust ◽  
Natalia Yakovleva

This paper aims to explore the emergence of ‘Green Banking’ in Bangladesh, with a focus on the role of financial regulation and regulators in greening the financial sector. It also examines the contribution and involvement of banks and non-bank financial institutions in promoting green economic transition. The study is based on the review of secondary data collected from various sources, such as quarterly reports, annual reports, websites of the central bank of Bangladesh, and other commercial banks and non-bank financial institutions as well as various articles, and newspapers reports on green banking in Bangladesh. The collected data is reviewed using descriptive statistics. The research results reveal that the central bank of Bangladesh played a major role in greening the financial system of the country by implementing various green policies and regulatory measures. Although Bangladesh is still far behind the developed countries in terms of environmental performance, the country has made a remarkable progress in initiating and expanding green banking practices, infrastructure development, and accelerating green growth in recent years.


2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 2064-2093 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Hadani ◽  
Jonathan P. Doh ◽  
Marguerite A. Schneider

Socially oriented shareholder activism is an increasingly important mechanism through which social movement organizations seek to influence the private sector by exerting pressure on corporate activities in areas such as human rights, environmental protection, and labor policies. This activism challenges the status quo of targeted firms and potentially their institutional field, disrupting “business as usual” and often drawing negative attention to the firms. We theorize that some firms might use corporate political activity (CPA) as an indirect, nonmarket strategy aimed at regulatory capture to reduce the impact of such disruptions. We focus on one popular avenue of shareholder activism—the proxy proposal mechanism—and the role the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) plays in allowing omission of socially oriented shareholder proposals from the proxy ballot. Using two distinct data sources, we find evidence that for S&P 500 firms, the SEC allows for the omission of the proposals from proxy ballots more frequently for those firms more active in CPA. These findings inform the growing scholarship on socially oriented activism as well as suggest the indirect influence of CPA on government agency decision making.


2010 ◽  
Vol 213 ◽  
pp. F13-F18 ◽  

Government fiscal positions in all the advanced economies suffered severe deteriorations during the financial crisis. Figure 1 illustrates the cumulative deterioration of the government budget ratio as a per cent of GDP between 2007 and 2009 in a selection of OECD economies. The sharpest declines materialised in Ireland, Spain and Finland, while public finances in Austria, Germany and Italy have held up better. Budget deficits have worsened in part because of the cyclical downturn, in part because of the policy response to the crisis, including both fiscal stimulus packages and certain fiscal costs related to government support of financial institutions, and in part because of a change in the relationship between revenue and production, which may prove longer-term.


2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-478
Author(s):  
James Bernstein ◽  
Leroi Raputsoana ◽  
Eric Schaling

This study assesses the behaviour of credit extension over the business cycle in South Africa for the period 2000 to 2012. This is motivated by the proposal of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision to look at credit extension over the business cycle as a reference guide for implementing countercyclical capital buffers for financial institutions. The study finds that credit extension in South increases during the trough phase, while the relationship between credit extension and the business cycle becomes insignificant during the peak phase. The study also finds that credit extension decreases during the expansion phase, while it increases during the contraction phase. Thus we do not find any evidence of procyclical behaviour of credit extension in South Africa, and the latter should therefore be used with caution and not as a mechanical rule based common reference guide for countercyclical capital buffers for financial institutions. 


Author(s):  
Paulo Melo ◽  
Dr Bill O’ Gorman ◽  
Arnoldo José de Hoyos Guevara ◽  
Renata Martins Corrêa

Innovation happens as a combination or a result of various phenomena (i.e. entrepreneurship, business environment, interactions, etc.); it is almost impossible for a single discipline to explain it. Given that there are many facets to explore to cover all aspects of innovation, the present paper approaches this theme from the sociological perspective. Innovation is not a solitary, but an interactive phenomenon, which requires firms to cooperate to reach innovation sources, new processes and technologies. As a theoretical reference, this paper develops the argument of the importance of the firms’ interaction linkages and connections and their influence on the efficiency of the innovation system. So, in this context, the authors decided to adopt the survey method to examine whether or not interaction linkages have an impact on micro and small technology-based firms’ innovativeness in Brazil. The findings showed that interactions between firms and other innovation agents such as universities, research centres, financial institutions and other partners is essential for the development of open, collaborative innovation activities and have a direct impact on the level of innovativeness. Finally, this paper concludes that innovation is a result of the combination of various interaction linkages and not an isolated phenomenon restricted to the firm. As such, it may be appropriately fostered.


Author(s):  
Jonathan R. Macey ◽  
Maureen O'Hara

This chapter discusses vertical and horizontal problems in financial regulation and corporate governance. More specifically, it examines three contexts in which efforts to mitigate systemic risk and moral hazard in capital markets and financial institutions clash with long-standing principles of corporate governance. The first issue relates to the so-called “vertical” challenge between financial institutions and the separately incorporated holding companies that own and control them. The second issue relates to the “horizontal” challenge, in which regulatory arbitrage occurs between the banking subsidiaries of complex holding companies and their less-regulated nonbank and shadow bank siblings. The third and final issue deals with the conflict between the conception of fiduciary duty in the federal law of insider trading and the concept of fiduciary duty in state law.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adegboyega Adekunle Ige

Purpose A review of literature revealed that many publications on efforts at combatting money laundering focus on two frameworks, namely, legal/legislative and institutional, while overlooking the third and equally important framework – the “regulatory/ supervisory framework.” This paper aims to eradicate the dearth in literature with regards to this third and seldom acknowledged framework and it aims at filling that gap. Design/methodology/approach The analysis took the form of a desk study, which distinguished the three frameworks for combatting money laundering and provided a comprehensive list of the main actors in each regime within the Nigerian legal context. The Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2016 was examined in detail. Findings Three categories of regulators were identified and discussed in this paper: the supervisory bodies that regulate the activities of financial institutions, namely, Central Bank of Nigeria, Securities and Exchange Commission and Nigerian Insurance Commission; The Bureau for Money Laundering Control which supervises – designated non-financial institutions and businesses; the Attorney General of the Federation; and (Self-Regulatory Organizations. The Attorney General of the Federation was identified as the prime regulator within the context of the 2016 Act. Suggestions on how the regulators could make the most of their roles were made in the concluding part. Research limitations/implications This paper only considered the Nigerian legal context and only the extant law – the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2016 was critically examined. Originality/value The findings in this paper and the writing approach are original.


Author(s):  
Alan N. Rechtschaffen

Prior to the 2007 financial crisis, financial regulation was compartmentalized along lines of segmented financial instruments. With the exception of the regulation of swaps as described in chapter 14, post-crisis regulatory reform maintains this bifurcation of regulation along product lines between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The SEC and the CFTC have begun to issue rules establishing a coordinated approach to regulating certain derivatives under the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (widely known as the Dodd-Frank Act) in particular as they relate to swaps. This chapter discusses the jurisdiction of the SEC, what constitutes a security, sellers’ representations, consequences of securities, hedge funds, and derivatives regulation.


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