Let the US Fiduciary Rule Go Ahead

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(Feb.24, 2017) The quantity of financial regulation is not quite as important as the quality.  One must get the details right.  The case of the US “fiduciary rule” strongly suggests that President Trump will not get the details right.

Could Dodd-Frank be improved?

Earlier this month, amid the flurry of tweets and other executive orders, the new occupant of the White House issued an executive order directing a comprehensive rethinking of the Dodd-Frank financial reform of 2010.

One can imagine various ways to improve the current legislation.   The most straightforward would be to restore many of the worthwhile features of the original plan that Republicans have undermined or negated over the last seven years.  (Most recently, the House this month voted to repeal a Dodd-Frank provision called “Publish What You Pay,” designed to discourage oil and mining companies from paying bribes abroad.  Score one for the natural resource curse.)

In theory, one might also attempt the difficult and delicate task of modifying, for example, the Volcker Rule, so as to improve the efficiency tradeoff between compliance costs for banks and other financial institutions, on the one hand, and the danger of instability in the system, on the other hand.  Some in the business community are acting as if they believe that Trump will get this tradeoff right.  I see no grounds whatsoever for thinking so.

In particular, the financial system has been strengthened substantially by such features of Dodd-Frank as higher capital requirements for banks, the establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the designation of Systemically Important Financial Institutions, tough stress tests on banks, and enhanced transparency for derivatives.  If these features were undermined or reversed, it would raise the odds of a damaging repeat of the 2007-08 financial crisis down the road.

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