A remarkable yet seldom noted set of parallels exists between modern U.S. bank regulation, on the one hand, and what used to be garden-variety American corporate law, on the other hand. For example, just as bank charters are matters not of right but of conditional privilege even today, so were...

Some prices and indices in national or transnational markets take on particular market-wide importance, either because (a) they are associated with ubiquitous inputs to production, (b) they are associated with highly popular asset classes, (c) they tend by convention to be used as benchmarks in...

The nation's recent financial crisis brought into sharp relief fundamental questions concerning the social function and purpose of the financial system, including its relation to the "real" economy. This Article argues that, to answer these questions, we must recapture a distinctively American...

Many people recognize that governments can play salutary roles in relation to markets by (a) “overseeing” market behavior from “above,” or (b) supplying foundational “rules of the game” from “below.” It is probably no accident that these widely recognized roles also sit...

Many units of government see a need for more inclusive money, payment, and retail banking systems for the generation, accumulation, and free transfer of spendable value among their constituents. Currently proliferating payments platforms, most provided by for-profit private-sector entities,...

Many units of government see a need for more inclusive money, payment, and retail banking systems for the generation, accumulation, and free transfer of spendable value among their constituents. This document sketches a smart-device-accessible peer-to-peer (‘P2P') savings and payments platform...

Many units of government see a need for more inclusive money, payment, and retail banking systems for the capture, storage, and transfer of spendable value among their constituents. Currently proliferating payments platforms, most provided by for-profit private sector entities, exclude too many...

This is testimony given by the author before the House Committee on Financial Services on 19 November 2015 in connection with MetLife v. Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC). The author argues that the FSOC's SIFI-designation process represents a textbook case of a familiar...

This brief invited essay lays out in summary form the eminent domain plan for securitized underwater mortgage loans that the author has been advocating and helping to implement for some years now. It does so with particular attention in this case to New York City, which is now actively...