This essay, which is based in part on the keynote speech I delivered in October at the European Central Bank conference on regulation of financial services, examines how the law can help to control financial chaos. The essay argues that any regulatory framework for achieving that goal will be...

In Re: Defining Securitization, Professor Jonathan Lipson attempts to define a “true” securitization transaction. My article engages Lipson's, exploring how securitization should be legally defined. As a starting point, even a normative approach to defining a financial concept should be...

Although shadow banking is said to be huge, estimated at over $60 trillion, it is not well defined. This short and accessible paper attempts to define shadow banking by identifying its overall scope and its basic characteristics. Based on the definition derived, the paper also conceptually...

In this Lecture, I examine how complex securitization transactions may have created a “protection gap,” the conundrum that transaction parties may be unable to purchase or might not want to pay the price for full protection. As a result, they sometimes choose or are forced to assume the good...

We briefly introduce the financial crisis and the role played by mortgage-backed securities. Then we describe the controversy at issue: whether, in order to own and enforce the mortgage loans backing those securities, a special-purpose vehicle “purchasing” mortgage loans must take physical...

This accessible analysis of systemic risk regulation was delivered as the keynote speech at an October 20, 2011 European Central Bank conference on regulation of financial services. Many regulatory responses, like the Dodd-Frank Act in the United States, consist largely of politically motivated...

States increasingly are raising financing indirectly through special-purpose entities (SPEs), variously referred to as authorities, special authorities, or public authorities. Notwithstanding their long history and increasingly widespread use, relatively little is known or has been written about...

The recent financial woes of Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and other nations have reinvigorated the debate over whether to bail out defaulting countries or, instead, restructure their debt. Bailouts are expensive, both for residents of the nation being bailed out and for parties providing the...

In this May 18, 2011 testimony before the Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance, and Investment of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, I suggest certain regulatory responses to improve securitization. Certain of securitization's problems are typical of problems we...

Increasingly finding themselves in financial straitjackets, states have been turning to austerity measures, tax increases, privatization of services, and renegotiation of collective bargaining agreements. Absent a federal government bailout, however, states will also need debt relief if their...