“Control frauds” are seemingly legitimate entities controlled by persons that use them as a fraud “weapon.” A single control fraud can cause greater losses than all other forms of property crime combined. This article addresses the role of control fraud in financial crises. Financial...

The savings and loan debacle of the 1980s was the worst financial scandal in U.S. history. The estimated present value cost to the taxpayers was $150-175 billion ($1993). The debacle was a major contributor to a sharp recession in real estate values in the Southwest. However, it had only a...

Economists have dominated U.S. scholarship about the S&L debacle and they have universally viewed the regulatory response as horrific. This paper argues that the conventional economic wisdom is badly flawed. The U.S. regulatory response to the debacle was disastrous – when economists shaped it...

The paper outlines the developments in the EU regulatory framework for executive remuneration since 2004 and going through the financial crisis. It also presents the results of an analysis of the remuneration practices adopted by the largest European listed firms before and after the crisis,...

Several commentators have argued that financial “reform” legislation enacted after a market crash is invariably flawed, results in “quack corporate governance” and “bubble laws,” and should be discouraged. This criticism has been specifically directed at both the Sarbanes-Oxley Act...

A primary cause of the recent credit market turmoil was overdependence on credit ratings and credit rating agencies. Without such overdependence, the complex financial instruments, particularly Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) and Structured Investment Vehicles (SIVs), which were at the...

The credit crisis that started in the American mortgage subprime market in 2007 is having profound social and economic consequences. In this context, lawmakers, regulators, and commentators have questioned the role of rating agencies in the market turmoil. In light of the critiques, a strong...

In an earlier companion essay, Regulating in the Dark, I contended that there is a systemic pattern in major U.S. financial regulation: (i) enactment is invariably crisis driven, adopted at a time when there is a paucity of information regarding what has transpired, (ii) resulting in...