Many public pension funds face serious funding shortfalls. In fact, more than half of the states currently have public pension funds with funded ratios that are less than 80 percent, a level many prefer. In this paper we examine factors important in explaining the funded ratios of state and...

Leaders from across the political spectrum articulate the virtues of homeownership. As expressed in the above quotations, both Republican and Democratic presidents emphasize that homeownership is part of the American dream. Besides the direct benefits accruing to a family owning its own house,...

Ten states and the District of Columbia prohibit the operation of payday loan stores, and thirty-one other states have imposed regulatory restraints on the controversial industry, ranging, for example, from caps on fees and loan amounts to the number of rollovers and renewals a borrower may...

Over the past 10 years, Alabama's public retirement system has seen its liabilities overtake its assets by more than $15 billion. This means the system has only 66 cents for every dollar owed to current and future retirees. Worse still, the shortfall has been growing by $4 million each day that...

The issues of most importance to Latinos, according to a recent poll, are the economy/job creation, immigration reform, and education reform. Education reform is of particular importance because of the close correlation between educational achievement of individuals and greater employment and...

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) of 2010 provides for a wide variety of new regulatory and supervisory initiatives with the goal to promote a safer and sounder banking system. Our paper puts Dodd-Frank into a historical perspective, identifies its key...

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, U.S. authorities are attempting to improve financial regulation and supervision. This involves a three-step process: (1) diagnosis of what went wrong, (2) design regulatory and supervisory reforms that address these defects, and (3) implement the...