Sky Blog
In April 2010, the Securities and Exchange Commission found itself in headlines no regulator wants. The agency’s Office of Inspector General revealed that 33 SEC employees and contractors had been regularly viewing pornography on government computers during work hours. More …
The G-20 nations committed to reform swap markets following the great financial crisis of 2007-08. In the U.S., these reforms were enacted under the Dodd-Frank Act. The interventions began to take effect at the very end of 2012, and new …
In a recently published paper I argue that the recent surge in shareholder activism in Japan is not simply the product of Japanese policy reforms. Rather, it results from a convergence of two parallel historical trajectories: a decades-long evolution of …
Difficulties in valuing the assets and liabilities of the largest banking organizations aggravated the 2007-08 financial crisis. Regulation under the Dodd-Frank Act sought to increase transparency and reduce complexity among these institutions. With the benefit of significant hindsight, it is …
“Too big to fail” became a household phrase during the 2007–08 Global Financial Crisis. When giant financial institutions teetered, the government reached for ad hoc bailouts, fearing contagion and a broader economic collapse. Congress responded with the Dodd-Frank Act, which …
Tariffs have been front-page news for the last few months, virtually since the moment that the Trump Administration came into office. Along with this news has come considerable commentary on the impact the tariffs may have on the U.S. and …
Shareholder activism has undergone a striking transformation over the past four decades. What began in the 1980s as a brash and often combative movement led by so-called corporate raiders has matured into a sophisticated, globally attuned, and strategically agile phenomenon. …
With growing concern, we fear that we are watching the SEC face a death by 1,000 cuts. No, we do not mean that the SEC is likely to be abolished by either executive or legislative action (although the Department of …
In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, stewardship codes emerged as a means for addressing the perceived shortcomings in the governance of public companies (Puchniak, 2024). While these codes vary across jurisdictions, they generally encourage informed voting by …
For better or worse, over the course of my career, I have had the opportunity to participate in the response to three financial crises – the thrift and banking crisis of the 1980s and early 1990s as a member of …
I teach a course on “Financial Crises/Regulatory Responses” with the economist Patrick Bolton. This course addresses the struggle to establish and maintain financial stability, an apex goal of the financial system. Last week, I told the students that by the …
Given banks’ importance to global economic stability, how they manage liquidity – their capacity to transform short-term liabilities into long-term assets – plays a pivotal role in supporting growth while maintaining financial resilience. It also entails considerable risk. Creating more …
The 2008-2009 global financial crisis (GFC) has cast a pall over several corporate governance mechanisms in many firms worldwide. Nonetheless, how the firms treated their female directors in the aftermath and whether they maintained gender diversity on their boards remain …
Money is a complex construct consisting of public and private elements. It is not all coined or printed by a government; a significant portion originates with private-sector entities like banks, against which other private parties have contractual claims. In a …
Since the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, the corporate finance markets have been dramatically transformed. Most notable has been the rise of non-traditional providers of debt finance such as private credit funds, which now aggressively compete with traditional finance providers …
We argue that bank regulation and supervision interfere with pricing risk by creating opacity. Given that market disclosures enhance the efforts of supervisors, and vice versa, more disclosure could enhance financial stability (see Spatt, 2010)[1]. In addition, we …
If you follow the financial press, you have probably seen coverage of the new bank capital requirements that federal regulators proposed last year. These rules would strengthen capital levels for the United States’ largest banks and thereby complete the implementation …
Over recent decades, and especially since the 2007-2008 global financial crisis (GFC), the corporate finance markets have changed considerably. First, there is more corporate debt now than ever. The 2023 banking crisis, and the ongoing macroeconomic conditions, further highlight …
In recent years, as corporate ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) goals have gained prominence and so-called “Millennials” and “GenZers” have entered the workforce, a sense has emerged in the media and among some academics that CEOs and other top executives …
Last year marked the 20th anniversary of Congress’ enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, legislation that arose in response to Enron’s demise and the accounting scandals that followed, and which coincided with the successful and much-heralded prosecution of a …