Many college and university 403(b) plans restrict investment choices to the funds offered by TIAA-CREF, the current manager of over half of all 403(b) contributions. In the face of 2006 Internal Revenue Code changes some sponsors are dropping alternatives to TIAA-CREF. Using historical data, we...

The regulatory framework established during the Great Depression spared us system-threatening financial failure for nearly four decades after World War II. The author gives a brief history of how the progressive deregulation of the financial system led to the crisis of 2008 and discusses the...

We can end the banking crisis immediately by offering temporary 100% deposit insurance to those banks that need it. In exchange the federal government should receive shares in those banks - a stake that would grow, the longer the insurance is provided. Moreover, as long as the insurance is...

This study uses data from thrift institutions to provide new evidence on the relation between executive pay and firm performance. We find a positive and statistically significant relation between CEO pay and firm performance as measured by both return on assets and return on equity. Moreover,...

Two private-sector committees empaneled by the President's Working Group on Financial Markets have released their reports on quot;best practicesquot; in hedge fund regulation. The more notable of the two is the Asset Managers Committee report, which reflects the views of hedge-fund managers...

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) are pools of assets owned and managed directly or indirectly by governments to achieve national objectives. These funds have raised concerns about: (i) financial stability, (ii) corporate governance and (iii) political interference and protectionism. At the same...

On 7 May, 2008, the Indian Government announced the ban futures trading in four agricultural commodities - chickpea, potato, rubber and soy oil. The purpose of this paper is to examine the rationale behind the ban and study how logical the decision to impose it is. The stated purpose of the ban...

It has been the author's privilege in recent years to personally visit with a number of nationally recognized retirement industry gurus. Generally speaking, these discussions have tended to identify two obstacles as blocking the implementation of any corporate strategy designed to retire workers...

Almost all literature on the evolution of financial supervision architecture stresses the importance of financial market characteristics in determining the recent trend toward more unification. In the real world, however, it is not always clear to what extent market features are important. We...

This paper analyzes recent trends in, and determinants of, financial supervisory governance inside and outside central banks. We first identify similarities and differences between this emerging strand in the literature and the central bank independence literature in order to frame the...