The Obama Administration and the U.S. Financial Crisis

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1850190
Author(s):  
Scheherazade S. Rehman

There has been tremendous pressure on the Obama Administration to justify the actions taken with regards to the U.S. financial crisis which has managed to eliminate, overnight, over a quarter of the middle class wealth and leave one in six adults without a job or underemployed, while generating a bailout debt that was unimaginable in scale and scope only five years ago. In response to this public pressure, in mid-June 2009, the Obama Administration issued a white paper titled “Financial Regulatory Reform - A New Foundation: Rebuilding Financial Supervision and Regulation" (published by the U.S. Department of Treasury) covering a wide range of areas of financial regulation that proposed a new architecture for financial supervision. Although the White Paper touches upon many of the Administration's promised responses to the crisis with regards to new financial regulations and supervisory changes, it has been criticized as being too narrow in the scope and breath needed to manage the sheer size and scale of the impact of the U.S. financial crisis. This paper focuses on ten concerns and issues of note with the Obama Administration's actions and responses to date with regards to the U.S. financial/banking crisis and its 2009 White Paper on “Financial Regulatory Reform." They are as follows: (1) No Discussion and Minimal Attempt by the Administration to Relay Their Understanding of and Global Transmission of This Financial Crisis, (2) Proposed Financial Oversight Council, (3) Increased Powers for the Federal Reserve, (4) Most Recommendations Do Not Follow the Trend Toward Supervision Consolidation, (5) Macroeconomic vs. Microeconomic Supervision, (6) Government in the Financial Markets and Industry, (7) No Significant International Standard Setting or Coordination to Date, (8) Issue of Too Big to Fail Still at Large, (9) Obama Administration's PR Debacle, and (10) Something to Show after Spending $1.4 Trillion Plus.

Author(s):  
Chase Foster

Since the global financial crisis, European governments have sought to intensify the supervision of financial markets. Yet, few studies have empirically examined whether regulatory approaches have systematically shifted in the aftermath of the crisis, and how these reforms have been mediated by longstanding national strategies to promote domestic financial interests in the European single market. Examining hundreds of enforcement actions in three key European jurisdictions, I find a mixed pattern of continuity and change in the aftermath of the crisis. In the UK, aggregate monetary penalties and criminal sanctions have skyrocketed since 2009, while in France and Germany, the enforcement pattern suggests continuity, with both countries assessing penalties and prosecuting insider trading at similar rates before and after the crisis. I conclude that financial regulation is still structured by longstanding industrial strategies (Story and Walter, 1997), but where pre-existing regulatory approaches were seen as contributing to the crisis, a broader regulatory overhaul has been pursued. Thus, in the UK, where the financial crisis served as a direct rebuke to the country’s “light touch” regulation, financial supervision was overhauled, and monetary sanctions dramatically increased, to preserve London’s status as an international financial centre. By contrast, in France and Germany, where domestic regulatory systems were implicated by the financial crisis, domestic securities supervision and enforcement was less dramatically altered. While the crisis has led to the further institutionalization of European-level supervisory institutions, these changes have not yet led to convergence in national regulatory approaches.   Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v12i1.1233


2000 ◽  
Vol 03 (03) ◽  
pp. 367-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chunchi Wu

This paper examines the trade relationship among Pacific Rim Asian economies and the U.S. with an attempt at understanding the fundamental causes for the contagious effects of the Asian financial crisis. East Asian economies trade extensively among themselves and with the U.S. This great dependence on foreign trade and investments has considerably increased the instability of the economies and financial markets in this region. It is found that the impact of the financial crisis on a domestic economy is positively correlated with its trade relationship with foreign economies. The importance of the trade relationship is manifested in the financial markets. Results show that the returns and volatility of a stock market are significantly influenced by the markets of its major trading partners. Also, foreign exchange markets often significantly interact with stock markets, especially following the Asian financial crisis. Furthermore, the Japanese and Hong Kong markets, instead of the U.S. market, had a dominating effect on East Asian financial markets during the period of the financial crisis.


2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 1635-1662 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars Norden ◽  
Peter Roosenboom ◽  
Teng Wang

AbstractWe investigate whether and how government interventions in the U.S. banking sector influence the stock market performance of corporate borrowers during the financial crisis of 2007–2009. We measure firms’ exposures to government interventions with an intervention score that is based on combined information on the firms’ structure of bank relationships and their banks’ participation in government capital support programs. We find that government capital infusions in banks have a significantly positive impact on borrowing firms’ stock returns. The effect is more pronounced for riskier and bank-dependent firms and for those that borrow from banks that are less capitalized and smaller.


Author(s):  
Renee M. Jones

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) conspicuous failures during the financial crisis of 2008 have led many to question the agency’s relevance in the modern financial era. Some commentators have called for the creation of new super-agencies to assume a substantial portion of the SEC’s duties. Others highlight enforcement failures and question the agency’s commitment to its investor protection mission. Despite its recent missteps and persistent calls for regulatory overhaul, the SEC’s future seems secure for now as President Obama’s reform proposals (the “Obama Plan”) as currently conceived preserve the agency’s independence.


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 185-202
Author(s):  
Jesse A. De Beer

Retirement income security is an issue relevant to the majority of South Africans, many of whom are financially inexperienced and illiterate. South Africa has a sophisticated retirement industry offering a very wide range of choice of annuity products, but these are often not designed to optimise choices by rather unsophisticated investors. This article provides an overview of issues in the South African income withdrawal market, as well as policy remedies proposed by National Treasury to deal with these issues. The aim of this paper is to provide a critical analysis of these policy proposals, using a behaviourally informed framework to financial regulation (Barr, Mullainathan & Shafir, 2008). It recognises that policy remedies need to take into account the realities of how people make retirement income decisions, and how the institutional environment impacts on this. The results of the research suggest that the main policy proposal – simplifying the retirement income withdrawal landscape through the use of default options – is only a partial solution to the problem of unsophisticated consumers who must make several challenging decisions. The research contributes to the literature by providing a more complete, integrated view of the factors that shape retirement income withdrawal decisions and offers practitioners several insights into appropriate reform of the retirement income market.


Author(s):  
Chase Foster

Since the global financial crisis, European governments have sought to intensify the supervision of financial markets. Yet, few studies have empirically examined whether regulatory approaches have systematically shifted in the aftermath of the crisis, and how these reforms have been mediated by longstanding national strategies to promote domestic financial interests in the European single market. Examining hundreds of enforcement actions in three key European jurisdictions, I find a mixed pattern of continuity and change in the aftermath of the crisis. In the UK, aggregate monetary penalties and criminal sanctions have skyrocketed since 2009, while in France and Germany, the enforcement pattern suggests continuity, with both countries assessing penalties and prosecuting insider trading at similar rates before and after the crisis. I conclude that financial regulation is still structured by longstanding industrial strategies (Story and Walter, 1997), but where pre-existing regulatory approaches were seen as contributing to the crisis, a broader regulatory overhaul has been pursued. Thus, in the UK, where the financial crisis served as a direct rebuke to the country’s “light touch” regulation, financial supervision was overhauled, and monetary sanctions dramatically increased, to preserve London’s status as an international financial centre. By contrast, in France and Germany, where domestic regulatory systems were implicated by the financial crisis, domestic securities supervision and enforcement was less dramatically altered. While the crisis has led to the further institutionalization of European-level supervisory institutions, these changes have not yet led to convergence in national regulatory approaches.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Stefan Vachkov ◽  
Nedyalko Valkanov

Rapid development of the high technologies sector undoubtedly reflects the present-day financial regulation. Innovations like blockchain, cloud computing and artificial intelligence underlie the foundations of newly appeared RegTech firms and SupTech initiatives and quickly appear in the toolbox of contemporary financial supervision. The article examines some key trends related to their involvement and implementation by financial institutions and supervisors. Several arguments supporting the thesis for gradual transition to a more integrated and interactive model of financial regulation, characterized by a change from institutional to platform financial regulatory infrastructure, are presented.


2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Santiago Carbó-Valverde ◽  
Harald A. Benink ◽  
Tom Berglund ◽  
Clas Wihlborg

Purpose – The purpose of this paper by the European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee (ESFRC) is to provide an account of the financial crisis in Europe during the period 2010-2013 and an analysis of how the relevant authorities reacted to the crisis. Design/methodology/approach – These actions included measures taken by central banks, governments or fiscal authorities, and by regulatory or supervisory bodies. In a previous study covering the regulatory developments during the financial crisis up until 2009, issues such as the implementation of Basel III rules in Europe and the (mostly ad hoc and unilateral) resolution mechanisms set in most European countries to fight the crisis were covered. This study focuses on developments since 2010 with a focus on the concerns and actions that emerged with the sovereign debt crisis in the euro area. In particular, the transition from the European Financial Stability Facility to the European Stability Mechanism is assessed. The focus after 2012 has progressively turned to the challenges of the European banking union. Findings – These issues are jointly covered, along with some updates on the views of the ESFRC on recent advances in other areas, such as solvency regulation. All in all, the authors find that the weaknesses of the global financial system remain to be addressed, and they believe that the banking union is one of the main tools and opportunities for an improved and efficient crisis management in Europe. Originality/value – The paper aims at contributing to the study of financial regulation after the banking crisis. The experience of the euro zone in this context is assessed in this article from a wide range of perspectives.


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