Financial Regulation: The Danger of Discretion

Justin Fox says that financial regulation should be simpler and should give less discretion to regulators.

The argument goes like this: the biggest flaw in current financial regulation is not that there is too little of it or too much, but that it relies on regulators knowing best. We regulate because financial systems are fragile, prone to booms and busts that can have harmful effects on the real economy. But regulators aren’t immune to the boom-bust cycle. They have an understandable habit of easing up when times are good and cracking down when they’re not.

As I’ve said before, the Obama Administration’s plan is likely to give us more sophisticated regulation, but if it doesn’t give us more powerful regulators with more incentive to stand up to the industry, all the sophistication in the world won’t matter. Regulators didn’t use the tools they had – the Fed could have policed risky mortgages (and raised interest rates), the bank regulators could have insisted on higher capital requirements, etc. – because they lacked the motivation to use them in the face of overwhelming opposition from the banking industry and, probably, the power to resist Congress and the administration, whichever party controlled them.

As Ezra Klein puts it:

“When evaluating a particular financial regulation proposal, ask yourself this question: Would these regulations have worked if Alan Greenspan hadn’t wanted to implement them?”

That’s a good question, although it’s a bit unfair: if you posit a regulator who doesn’t believe in regulation, then virtually any regulatory scheme is bound to fail. This is why Fox and Klein argue for ironclad rules that don’t leave room for discretion. In addition, though, I think we also need to think about how to make sure we get regulators who are not cheerleaders for or captives of the financial services industry.

• Become A Funded Futures Trader