Showing archive for: “Financial Regulation”
Disclosure of ethics waivers under SOX: Recent scholarship from Rodrigues and Stegemoller
Usha Rodrigues and Mike Stegemoller have penned an interesting article, “Placebo Ethics,” assessing the effect of one of SOX’s disclosure provisions: The required immediate disclosure of waivers from a company’s code of ethics, found in Section 406 of the law. The article is concrete, informative, empirical and well-written. The article’s abstract summarizes the heart of ... Disclosure of ethics waivers under SOX: Recent scholarship from Rodrigues and Stegemoller
Interchange Fees Symposium E-Book
Over at the International Center for Law and Economics website we’ve posted a link to a pdf e-book version of the collected content (including both posts and comments) from our recent “Interchange Fees and the Law and Economics of Credit Cards” symposium. Head on over and download a copy if you’re interested in a dead ... Interchange Fees Symposium E-Book
Posner cites Wright
I’m sure it’s an honor just to be nominated. A recent opinion from Judge Posner cites our very own Josh Wright (Joshua D. Wright & Todd J. Zywicki, “Three Problematic Truths About the Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009,” Lombard Street, Sept. 14, 2009, available here) (by the way, the essay has drawn a ... Posner cites Wright
Correcting the Record: AAG Varney and the Chicago School's Premature "Retirement"
Geoff recently highlighted AAG Christine Varney’s closing remarks at the Horizontal Merger Guidelines workshop and was fairly critical. Thom intervened to suggest that we at TOTM, while fairly critical of the agencies from time to time, also give credit where it is due — highlighting AAG Varney’s RPM article. OK, that’s enough credit for now. ... Correcting the Record: AAG Varney and the Chicago School's Premature "Retirement"
"In the long run, my friend, it's your theory that's dead"
Russ Roberts’ brilliant and eagerly-awaited Keynes vs. Hayek rap video is here. It’s the best economics pop music since Merle Hazzard. Here are the lyrics: We’ve been going back and forth for a century [Keynes] I want to steer markets, [Hayek] I want them set free There’s a boom and bust cycle and good reason ... "In the long run, my friend, it's your theory that's dead"
Note to Simon Johnson: I do not think antitrust means what you think it means
Simon Johnson is at it again, advocating the use of antitrust to break up the banks because they are, you know, big, and antitrust is about busting up big companies, right? As Josh suggested back in July, the idea is gaining momentum, it seems. The Financial Times is also pushing the idea. What’s remarkable about ... Note to Simon Johnson: I do not think antitrust means what you think it means
The problem with paper payments
Jim Van Dyke (who contributed to our interchange symposium) has an interesting post up today recounting a brief glimpse of life without payment cards: What would a day without payment cards be like? I had a glimpse into that just this morning, when my usual Bay Area morning routine of using my prepaid card to ... The problem with paper payments
Gretchen Morgenson Calls for Greater Protection (?) of High-Risk Consumers of Credit
Gretchen Morgenson doesn’t want poor people to have access to consumer credit. At least, that’s what I think she’s saying in her rambling NYT column this week. Congress and federal regulators have recently taken a number of actions that will make it tougher for riskier customers to access consumer credit. First there was the Credit ... Gretchen Morgenson Calls for Greater Protection (?) of High-Risk Consumers of Credit
David Evans Makes the Case Against Revamping Consumer Protection
Economist, co-author, and sometimes TOTM guest David Evans (UCL, University of Chicago School of Law) has an excellent note on “Why Now is Not the Right Time To Revamp Consumer Protection,” based on remarks made at the New York Federal Reserve Board-New York University Conference on Regulating Consumer Financial Products yesterday in New York. Evans ... David Evans Makes the Case Against Revamping Consumer Protection
The faulty logic of "protecting" consumers from the absence of annual fees
Our friend and University of Chicago law professor, Omri Ben-Shahar, fresh off a run participating in our credit card interchange fee symposium, has penned a guest post following up on our ongoing discussion of annual fees: There is no annual fee for shopping at Wal-Mart, but there is an annual fee for shopping at Sam’s ... The faulty logic of "protecting" consumers from the absence of annual fees
Credit card annual fees and the self-appointed consumer protectors
Adam Levitin has a blog post up responding to Todd Zywicki’s recent WSJ editorial on credit card interchange fees. As most readers know, this is a topic of significant interest around here, and Josh blogged about Todd’s op-ed just yesterday. I’m on vacation so I’ll be brief, but I thought Adam’s post was so wrong ... Credit card annual fees and the self-appointed consumer protectors
Zywicki on Interchange Fee Legislation
My colleague (and TOTM Credit Card Symposium participant — posts here and here) Todd Zywicki has an excellent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today on Congressional legislation aimed at regulating interchange fees. Here’s an excerpt detailing the predictable economic consequences of the legislation: What would happen if the Merchants Payments Coalition gets its way ... Zywicki on Interchange Fee Legislation
