CAMBRIDGE – I recently examined the problem of corporate short-termism from two nonstandard angles. One was that some short-termism is sensi…

CHICAGO – From the standpoint of European stability, the Italian elections could not have delivered a worse outcome. Italy’s parliament is d…

CAMBRIDGE – In a recent commentary, I examined whether increasing pressure from more rapid stock trading is inducing corporate managers to o…

CHICAGO – Hardly a day goes by without a settlement between a bank and a US government agency or regulator. The latest one is between Bank o…

CAMBRIDGE – Economic trends are sometimes more closely related to one another than news reports make them seem. For example, one regularly e…

CHICAGO – Europe has been experiencing a period of calm after the storm since European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s “whatever it ta…

CAMBRIDGE – The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently rejected proposed rules aimed at making money-market funds s…

CHICAGO – Since the late 1970’s, the academic diffusion of game theory has led macroeconomists to emphasize the importance of “commitment,” …

CAMBRIDGE – America’s long-controversial Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which separated deposit-taking commercial banks from securities-trading…

CHICAGO – Since the United States Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision, which prohibited the government from restricting independent p…

CAMBRIDGE – Is austerity dead? At last month’s G-8 meeting at Camp David, the German-led austerity program for the eurozone’s troubled south…

CHICAGO – The ongoing global economic crisis is not only causing incumbent governments to lose elections; it is also shaking corporate board…

CAMBRIDGE – Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s visit last week to Washington, DC, offers an occasion to consider how some once-poor countr…

CHICAGO – A Greek tragedy is typically composed of three acts. The first sets the scene. It is only with the second that the plot reaches it…

CAMBRIDGE – European leaders are seriously considering a Tobin tax, which would put a small levy on financial transactions, thereby dampenin…

CHICAGO – Central bankers should not only be above suspicion of wrongdoing, but also appear to be above it. So the decision in January by Ph…

CAMBRIDGE – Sometimes, we just don’t learn.After the financial crisis, the United States enacted the Dodd-Frank Act to overhaul American fin…

CHICAGO – Imagine that you are an elected member of the United States House of Representatives in the middle of the debate on the health-car…

CAMBRIDGE – To reduce the chance that a financial meltdown like that of 2007-2008 will recur, regulators are now seeking to buttress institu…

CHICAGO – Three years have now passed since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which triggered the start of the most acute phase of the 2007-2…

CAMBRIDGE – The West is ensnared in a debt crisis. The United States, as everyone knows, came perilously close to defaulting on August 2, an…

CHICAGO – In trying to understand the pattern and timing of government interventions during a financial crisis, we should probably conclude …

CAMBRIDGE – If capitalism’s border is with socialism, we know why the world properly sees the United States as strongly capitalist. State ow…

CHICAGO – The launch of two European antitrust investigations into the market for credit default swaps (CDS) might appear to be no more than…

CAMBRIDGE – Financial commentators have likened Japan’s earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear catastrophe to derivatives’ role in the 2008 financ…