Bank failures are often perceived to be more costly to the economy than the failure of other firms of comparable size and to generate widespread public fear. As a result, preventing bank failures is a major public policy concern in all countries. Unfortunately, most public policy strategies...

This paper analyzes the characteristics of U.S. insurers for purposes of determining whether they are systemically risky. More specifically, primary factors (size, interconnectedness, and lack of substitutability) and contributing factors (leverage, liquidity risk and maturity mismatch,...

Much work has been done in recent years on the subject of insurance regulation and capital requirements, and the process of regulatory reform will continue. It behooves insurance supervisors to take a step back, revisit the underlying assumptions that have driven supervisory reform in the...

With increased angst about American health care, policy makers increasingly consider some type of single payer system. Dr. Gratzer reviews evidence from Canada and Europe, concluding that these systems are plagued by low standards and poorer health outcomes.

Commissioner Bell’s speech was prepared for the Fourth Annual Networks Financial Institute Insurance Reform Summit held on March 7, 2007 in Washington D.C.

China has a two-part financial system with a competitive market-based component and a public, government directed component. Both have reformed rapidly since China's reforms began in 1978. The market-based component is immature and subject to numerous systemic weaknesses, while the government...

This policy brief evaluates the banking and policy implications of 2006 Congressional legislation authorizing the Federal Reserve to pay interest on reserves held at Federal Reserve banks beginning in October 2011. This upcoming policy change has received remarkably little attention from the...

Ever since severe turmoil enveloped the financial markets in the fall of 2008, commentators have blamed deregulation of the financial system, and specifically the supposed "repeal" of the Glass-Steagall Act by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999,2 for the crisis. This has led many to advocate a...

This paper examines consumer protection regulation in insurance markets and discusses how regulation could be made more efficient and robust. The paper argues that regulatory costs could be lowered and effectiveness enhanced by better targeting regulations to address market failures. Regulations...

Despite the fact that it grew out of a financial crisis, the Dodd-Frank Act was not the result of a bipartisan consensus. It received no Republican votes in the House of Representatives and only three Republican votes in the Senate. There are repeated statements by Republicans that they would...