How the Obama Administration Should Regulate the Financial Sector

Abstract

The Obama Administration will be looking to the financial regulatory apparatus to prevent future economic crises like the one the country is experiencing right now. Any ungainly financial "Departments of Homeland Security" created as part of the Administration's reform agenda that lack key regulatory attributes will not play an effective role in preventing or mitigating future financial crises. Whatever their final form, the ultimate financial regulators need the right people, adequate access and information, the ability to analyze that information, and a means to respond rapidly to financial emergencies. Otherwise they will have little hope of doing the proactive, forward-looking thinking the Administration will need them to perform.