The global crisis of 2008 associated with the failure of Lehman Brothers revealed the fragility of the financial system. In its aftermath, policy makers created many new rules to address the perceived causes of the crisis and to enhance financial stability. Nearly all of these rules have now...

Investors have too often extrapolated from recent experience. In the 1950s, who but the most rampant optimist would have dreamt that over the next fifty years the real return on equities would be 9% per year? Yet this is what happened in the U.S. stock market. The optimists triumphed. However,...