We evaluate the role of insider ownership in shaping banks' equity issuances in response to the global financial crisis. We construct a unique dataset on the ownership structure of U.S. banks and their equity issuances and discover that greater insider ownership leads to less equity issuances....

Introduction -- Regulating finance is hard to do -- Incentives run amok -- How U.S. regulators encouraged the financial crisis -- American crisis? Ain't necessarily so -- Been down this road many times before -- More of the same: post 2007-2009 financial crisis regulation -- Making the guardians...