This paper reviews what economists have learned about Internet banking. The paper begins by surveying evidence regarding the fundamental motivations for banks to offer services via the Internet and for their customers to utilize the services. It considers the experience of and future prospects...

Critics and supporters alike have framed the Affordable Care Act as an effort primarily aimed at expanding access to healthcare insurance. As the refrain goes, the legislation placed much less emphasis on pursuing ways to make healthcare delivery more affordable. This analysis belies significant...

This paper seeks to review events leading up to the financial crisis of 2008, including the massive government intervention into the U.S. financial markets, and then asks some questions and makes some recommendations about changes in specific areas of business practice and public policy as they...

Bank failures are often perceived to be more costly to the economy than the failure of other firms of comparable size and to generate widespread public fear. As a result, preventing bank failures is a major public policy concern in all countries. Unfortunately, most public policy strategies...

This paper analyzes the characteristics of U.S. insurers for purposes of determining whether they are systemically risky. More specifically, primary factors (size, interconnectedness, and lack of substitutability) and contributing factors (leverage, liquidity risk and maturity mismatch,...

Much work has been done in recent years on the subject of insurance regulation and capital requirements, and the process of regulatory reform will continue. It behooves insurance supervisors to take a step back, revisit the underlying assumptions that have driven supervisory reform in the...

With increased angst about American health care, policy makers increasingly consider some type of single payer system. Dr. Gratzer reviews evidence from Canada and Europe, concluding that these systems are plagued by low standards and poorer health outcomes.

Commissioner Bell’s speech was prepared for the Fourth Annual Networks Financial Institute Insurance Reform Summit held on March 7, 2007 in Washington D.C.

China has a two-part financial system with a competitive market-based component and a public, government directed component. Both have reformed rapidly since China's reforms began in 1978. The market-based component is immature and subject to numerous systemic weaknesses, while the government...