The financial crisis of 2008 revealed shortcomings in financial regulation that contributed significantly to a near-collapse of the U.S. financial system. The Task Force, a group of prominent scholars and financial market experts formed in May 2009, is working to build bipartisan consensus on the major federal financial reform issues. This document contains the principal recommendations of the Task Force signatories.
March 08, 2010
In this briefing paper, Richard J. Herring examines the G-20’s recent recommendation that systemically-important financial institutions (SIFIs) should develop firm-specific resolution plans. These plans would be approved by regulators and would provide a guide for resolving a failed firm without resorting to a government bailout. Herring describes what provisions such “wind-down plans” should contain, and how their adoption could benefit financial markets over the long term.
November 19, 2009
In this briefing paper, Richard J. Herring proposes the establishment of a private board with a public mandate to set securitization standards and to encourage their adoption. This Securitization Transaction Approval Review (STAR) Board of leading participants in securitization markets, including institutional investors, would have the mandate to improve the transparency of these markets and to realign the incentives of each agent, including the Credit Rating Agencies, with those of final investors.
November 16, 2009
Charles Taylor and Gordon McDonald act as Guest Editors for Lombard Street Volume 1, Issue 16. Lombard Street is the first ever e‐journal focused exclusively on financial services regulation. In this issue of Lombard Street, Financial Reform Project Task Force members and authors offer commentary on the consolidation of bank regulators.
October 21, 2009
This paper looks at systemic risk from the perspective of network structure, and the connectivity links between actors in the financial system. It notes that network structure may have played a role in the financial crisis in three important ways: that financial markets may have lacked robustness; that the pattern of network links may have made the system subject to contagion; and that a lack of diversity in networks may have impaired their resilience, or ability to adapt.
