Columbia Law School
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Finance & Economics
No Comment: Language Barriers and the IASB’s Comment Letter Process
High-quality accounting standards are critical for efficient global markets. The most widespread – used in more than 150 countries – are International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) creates and maintains IFRS, which is challenging because …
Unpacking the U.S. Deposit Insurance Debate
U.S. banking has always been a risky business. The financial panics of 1819, 1837, 1873, 1907, and 1931-32 all sparked banking crises, recessions, or full-scale depressions. Depositors lost everything every time a bank failed. But the Great Depression was the …
Are Corporate Misdeeds Deterred by Market Competition?
In July 2021, President Biden issued an executive order aimed at promoting competition in the American economy. This development has renewed researchers’ interest in the impact of competition on firm behavior and economic activity. While prior research focused on how …
Calling Republicans’ Bluff on the Debt Ceiling – and Creating Contingency Plans
As Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently observed, the United States has not defaulted on its national debt since its founding in 1789, and we should not start now.[1] She also pointed out that Congress has raised the statutory ceiling …
Davis Polk Discusses FSOC Proposals on Nonbank SIFIs
The Financial Stability Oversight Council unanimously approved two proposals for public comment regarding FSOC’s authority to designate nonbank financial companies for Federal Reserve supervision and regulation, as summarized in our deck. These proposals would reverse key aspects of changes made …
ESG, Public Pensions, and Compelled Speech
With the rise of investing based on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors has come controversy. While some see ESG investing as a way to create sustainable shareholder value,[1] others view it as a means for advancing contested values …
Cleary Gottlieb Discusses Risks of Debt Ceiling Impasse for Corporations — Even Without a Default
As the threat of an unprecedented default in U.S. government debt plays out over the coming months, the United States is in uncharted territory. And so are directors and management teams at corporates, whether public or private. While there have …
Modeling Managers as EPS Maximizers
In business schools, managers are taught to maximize the net present value (NPV) of future cash flows. In the real world, managers consistently ignore this advice. When asked, they repeatedly say they maximize earnings per share (EPS). “Firms view earnings, …
A Way Out of the Banking Crisis: The Case for a New Style Prime Money Market Fund
The best way out of the bank stability problem revealed by the run on Silicon Valley Bank – but spreading to other banks – may be a new style of prime money market fund (“MMF”) that, unlike existing prime MMFs, …
From Hero to Zero – The Case of Silicon Valley Bank
The sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) surprised many investors and industry experts, given the bank’s recent accolades and long-standing reputation as one of the best national and regional banks in the U.S.[1]Moreover, there had been no …
Giant Asset Managers, the Big Three, and Index Investing
Within the world of corporate governance, there has hardly been a more important recent development than the rise of the Big Three asset managers — Vanguard, State Street Global Advisors, and BlackRock. Due to the popularity of index funds and …
Financial Institution Innovation Needed in Silicon Valley
The failure of Silicon Valley Bank to find a buyer opens up the possibility (and the need) for a new kind of bank that is focused on financial stability as well as the traditional banking functions of lending and running …
Rethinking Commercial Law’s Uncertain Boundaries
In a forthcoming article, I observe that commercial law has uncertain boundaries, challenging the traditional view that commercial law is a separate and distinct body of law. Various provisions of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) may be overinclusive, conflicting …
Treasury, Fed, and FDIC Issue Joint Statement on Actions Relating to Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank
Today we are taking decisive actions to protect the U.S. economy by strengthening public confidence in our banking system. This step will ensure that the U.S. banking system continues to perform its vital roles of protecting deposits and providing access …
Do the Old Rules Apply to ESG Ratings and Benchmarks?
The steady growth of sustainable finance in recent years poses difficult questions on how regulators should approach it. In the European Union (EU), for example, there has been an explosion of new rules aimed at addressing a broad array of …
Should Labor Abandon Its Capital?
Public pension funds and labor union funds (together “labor’s capital”) have faced years of criticism from both the left and the right. The current battle between ESG and anti-ESG advocates, and the introduction of legislation at the state level trying …
Does Stock Indexing Impede or Facilitate Arbitrage and Price Discovery?
What is the effect of stock indexing on information arbitrage and the efficacy of the price discovery process? Forty-five years after John C. Bogle, the Vanguard Group founder, launched the world’s first index mutual fund, and 30 years after the …
Economic and Normative Implications of Algorithmic Credit Scoring
Commercial use of artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating and transforming nearly every economic, social, and political domain. Yet, academic commentary on algorithmic decision-making in financial services has warned that historical data could result in biased algorithmic tools.[1] Bias, among …
Fed, FDIC, OCC Jointly Warn Banks About Crypto-Asset Risks
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) (collectively, the agencies) are issuing the following statement on crypto-asset1 risks to banking …