Over at the Economist’s Free Exchange blog, Grep Ip offers an excellent, balanced analysis of regulatory uncertainty and our weak economy. Here’s a short excerpt: How much of our economic malaise can be blamed on regulatory uncertainty? Conservatives argue that a wave of Obama administration regulations and the threat of more to come are the [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Regulation’
Regulatory Uncertainty and Our Weak Economy
Posted in Economy, Regulation, tagged Economy, Regulation, Uncertainty on September 8, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Taxi Medallions in DC: Who Would Win and Lose?
Posted in Microeconomics, Regulation, tagged Microeconomics, Regulation, Taxi on April 10, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Today’s lesson in political economy: the looming battle over Washington’s cab market. Three members of DC’s City Council (Marion Barry, Harry Thomas, Jr., and Michael Brown) want to require every taxi to have a medallion. The number of medallions would be much smaller than the number of cabs on the streets today. As I noted [...]
CBO Weighs in on Fannie and Freddie
Posted in Budget, Finance, Regulation, tagged CBO, Fannie Mae, Finance, Freddie Mac, GSE, Housing, Regulation on December 23, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office released its long-awaited report on the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Role in the Secondary Mortgage Market (written by Deborah Lucas and David Torregrosa, with input from a cast of dozens — including, full disclosure, me as an outside reviewer) provides an [...]
DC’s New Mayor Should Say No to Taxi Medallions
Posted in Microeconomics, Regulation, tagged Microeconomics, Regulation, Taxi on November 9, 2010 | 18 Comments »
I love taxi medallions. As an example for my microeconomics students, not as policy. Just last week, I used New York City’s medallion system to show how an entry barrier — the requirement that each yellow taxi have one of a limited number of medallions — could create profits in an otherwise viciously competitive industry. [...]
Positive Feedback and the Flash Crash
Posted in Finance, Regulation, tagged Finance, Regulation, Stock Market on October 1, 2010 | 3 Comments »
The CFTC and SEC staffs are out with their analysis of the May 6 “flash crash.” Short version: A large trader (identified by the media as Waddell & Reed) initiated a large sell order to be executed based on volume, not time or price. The initial selling boosted trading volumes which prompted the algorithm to sell [...]
Fannie & Freddie Reform Gets a Boost from the Washington Post
Posted in Budget, Finance, Regulation, tagged Fannie Mae, Finance, Freddie Mac, GSE, Regulation on June 5, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Sunday’s Washington Post has an encouraging editorial about the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reform proposal that Phill Swagel and I recently put forward. An excerpt: [Their plan would] abolish the most toxic features of the old “government-sponsored enterprise” model. In particular, the plan would get Fannie and Freddie out of the business of directly [...]
What Should We Do with Fannie and Freddie?
Posted in Budget, Finance, Regulation, tagged Fannie Mae, Finance, Freddie Mac, GSE, Regulation on May 23, 2010 | 8 Comments »
The past few years have demonstrated that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two mortgage giants, were built on a flawed business model. One that paired private profit in good times with taxpayer burdens in bad times; created systemic risks to the world financial system; concealed the degree of federal involvement in mortgage markets; and [...]
A Useful Primer on Derivatives Regulation
Posted in Finance, Regulation, tagged Derivatives, Finance, Regulation on April 23, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Bob Litan of the Brookings Institution recently penned an excellent overview of the issues surrounding derivatives regulation, with a particular focus on credit default swaps (CDS). ”The Derivative Dealers’ Club and Derivatives Markets Reform: A Guide for Policy Makers, and Other Interested Parties,” is really two pieces in one: a primer on derivatives policy and a [...]
Mythical Budget Savings from Cutting TARP
Posted in Budget, Finance, Regulation, tagged Budget, Finance, Regulation, TARP on December 9, 2009 | 9 Comments »
The TARP news continues fast and furious. This afternoon’s installment involves the House’s financial regulation bill, officially known as H.R. 4173, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009. That bill would make many changes to financial regulation, one of which – enhanced dissolution authority for financial firms that run into severe trouble [...]
John Smith: “I Made $1 Million Reading dmarron.com”*
Posted in Regulation, tagged Regulation on November 12, 2009 | 12 Comments »
*Results not typical. Over at Managerial Econ, Luke Froeb highlights a new FTC initiative to crack down on testimonial advertising. Its target? Ads that highlight extreme results (“I lost 100 pounds eating Wonder chocolate”), without revealing what typical results look like. The FTC won’t forbid firms from highlighting extreme results, but if they do, they will also have [...]
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