The coronavirus has produced a public health debacle of the first-order. But the virus is also propagating the kind of exogenous shock that can precipitate – and to a considerable degree is already precipitating – a systemic event for our financial system. This currently unfolding systemic...

Since 1975, investment managers in the United States have been permitted to pay excess brokerage commissions on securities transactions and then utilize those excess payments—commonly known as “soft dollars”—to purchase research and related services, thereby subsidizing the investment...

By treating derivatives and financial repurchase agreements much more favorably than it treats other financial vehicles, American bankruptcy law subsidizes these arrangements relative to other financing channels. By subsidizing them, the rules weaken market discipline during ordinary financial...