More than a decade after the 2008 financial crisis, U.S. policymakers still have not adequately addressed one of the primary causes of the crash: foreign banks.
This event will be virtual.
Ten years after the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, and in the midst of an even more devastating economic and public health crisis, what are the risks to the financial system and the U.S. economy? This conference will explore whether the Act created an enduring structure to make the financial system fairer, safer, and better harnessed to the needs of the real economy. Panels will explore the policy choices made in the Dodd-Frank Act, DFA’s implementation over the decade, changes during the Trump Administration, current and potential risks to the financial system, debates over consumer protection, and the future of reform.
Join us for a conversation between Richard Cordray, former Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Michael S. Barr, Dean of the Ford School. They will be speaking about Cordray's new book, Watchdog: How Protecting Consumers Can Save Our Families, Our Economy, and Our Democracy.
Join CFLP for our second Blue Bag Lunch Talk of Winter 2020! Professor Elizabeth Anderson will lead our discussion on "Contradictions of the Work Ethic: Shareholder Capitalism and the Capital Share of Income."
The University of Michigan FinTech Collaboratory, of which the Center on Finance, Law & Policy is part, is collaborating with MCubed to announce new funding opportunities for University of Michigan faculty who are undertaking research, course development, or other educational programming focused on financial technology.
The Saving for Education, Entrepreneurship and Downpayment (SEED) initiative began in 2003 to test asset-building accounts for children and youth with the goal of providing strategic and practical lessons in how to create an inclusive CSA system. At the SEED impact assessment site in Michigan (MI-SEED), 500 Head Start families were offered Michigan 529 Educational Savings plans. The accounts were opened with an initial contribution of $800 from program funding and a possible $200 match from the State of Michigan. Any subsequent savings by the family were matched 1:1 up to $1200. Another set of similar Head Start families made up a comparison group that was not offered accounts. Most of the participating pre-school children are now old enough to graduate from high school and actually use the accounts to fund post-secondary education. This presentation will offer preliminary longitudinal data on accounts, standardized test scores, and other educational outcomes over time.
Interested in a career in Finance or Technology? Learn More From Professor Adrienne Harris!Adrienne A. Harris is a Professor of the Practice at the University of Michigan, as well as a Gates Foundation Senior Research Fellow with the Center for Finance, Law and Policy at the University. Adrienne also advises fintech companies, incumbent financial institutions, and large venture capital firms. Most recently, Adrienne was the Chief Business Officer and General Counsel a San Francisco-based, insur-tech start-up for which she is now an Advisor. Adrienne was a Special Assistant to President Obama for Economic Policy at the National Economic Council in the Obama White House. She spearheaded the development of the Administration’s fintech strategy, chairing both the Interagency Fintech Working Group and the Administration’s Distributed Ledger Technology Task Force. She came to the White House from the U.S. Department of Treasury where she served as Senior Advisor to the Deputy Secretary. Prior to coming to Washington, D.C., Adrienne was an Associate at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York, where her practice included representing financial institutions in complex regulatory proceedings and M&A transactions. Adrienne earned her M.B.A. from New York University Stern School of Business with specializations in Economics and Management, her J.D. from Columbia University Law School, and her B.A. from Georgetown University.
University of Michigan Detroit Center
3663 Woodward Ave, Detroit, MI 48201
The University of Michigan's Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Project is hosting its first Small Business Showcase. Meet some of the 30 Detroit small business owners who are working with University of Michigan marketing, communications, law, design, and accounting students this fall -- and a few of our superstar alumni businesses, too!
Traditionally, central banks have served three policy functions – monetary policy, payments systems oversight, and financial institution supervision. This conference will convene international experts and practitioners to examine how these core functions contribute to financial inclusion, poverty alleviation, and a more inclusive economy – and what could be improved.The conference contributes to a research initiative undertaken by the University of Michigan’s Center on Finance, Law & Policy, in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to consider how the role of a central bank could evolve in the future and enable central banks to make greater contributions toward financial inclusion. Ultimately, the research intends to identify technologies, processes, or tools that could benefit a central bank in supporting public policy objectives related to inclusion, and consider whether other sectors, including philanthropy, might have a role to play in supporting the development of those tools. Registration to the event is free. Speakers and attendees will include individuals from standards-setting bodies, central banks and other financial regulators, and policymakers, as well as futurists and technologists, and other financial ecosystem stakeholders.For more information visit http://financelawpolicy.umich.edu.
Sixty years ago, Congress established a federal pre-approval regime for bank mergers to protect consumers from then-unprecedented consolidation in the banking sector. This process worked well for several decades, but it has since atrophied, producing numerous “too big to fail” banks.
Professor Kress's research contends that regulators’ current approach to evaluating bank merger proposals is poorly suited for modern financial markets. Policymakers and scholars have traditionally focused on a single issue: whether a bank merger would reduce competition. Over the past two decades, however, changes in bank regulation and market structure—including the repeal of interstate banking restrictions and the emergence of nonbank financial service providers—have rendered bank antitrust analysis largely obsolete. As a result, regulators have rubber stamped recent bank mergers, despite evidence that such deals could harm consumers and destabilize financial markets.
Professor Kress's research asserts that contemporary bank merger analysis should instead emphasize statutory factors that regulators have long neglected: whether a proposed merger would increase systemic risks, enhance the public welfare, and strengthen the relevant institutions. Professor Kress's research urges regulators to modernize their approach, and it proposes a novel framework to ensure that bank merger oversight safeguards the financial system. The proposals contained herein have far-reaching implications not only for bank regulation but also for the ongoing debate over merger policy in technology, agriculture, and other industries.
ComCap19, presented by the National Coalition for Community Capital (NC3), is a multi-day gathering that offers a unique educational and networking opportunity for all those working toward equitable, resilient, and engaged communities.
The University of Michigan Law School Senior Day will take place at 4:00 pm on Friday, May 10 at Hill Auditorium. The Center on Finance, Law, and Policy would like to congratulate our graduating research assistants from Michigan Law: Abigail DeHart, Graves Lee, and William Brady Randall. For more information on the ceremony, including how to watch via livestream, click here: Michigan Law Senior Day
um3detroit is an interdisciplinary gathering that brings together U-M's three campuses along with Detroit community partners to share and strengthen our connections to Detroit and each other.
*Stream* Gene Sperling provides unique perspective and insights on the intersection between the U.S. and global economy and the most pressing economic policy issues of the day.
Many statutes now permit bounties for whistleblowers who provide enforcement relevant information to the authorities. The growth in such bounties has been quite rapid in recent years generating substantial scholarly, policy and practical interest. However, much of the scholarship does not address a critical feature of corporate liability in the US – there is considerable uncertainty about both the scope and definition of wrongdoing. This talk examines the effects of this uncertainty on the desirable structure and incidence of bounty regimes. Some key findings are that the greater this uncertainty the harder it will be to gather information about wrongdoing both within a firm and more generally because individuals will likely be reluctant to share information that might be relevant to enforcement. This has numerous effects. First, as gathering and sharing of information becomes more difficult it will become harder to deter and prevent wrongdoing, which in part depends on gathering and sharing information. Second, weaker gathering and sharing of information within the firm will hamper the ability of employees to work together cohesively. This not only worsens firm performance (which has its own costs), but also is likely to increase wrongdoing because poor firm performance is a key predicator of corporate wrongdoing. The analysis thus counsels caution in extending whistleblower bounties to areas where the underlying law is uncertain, provides insights on how one might design a bounty system in light of this uncertainty (e.g., differentiating between internal and external whistleblowers, varying bounties by firm size), and lays out certain steps that might be taken to ameliorate some of the identified effects of uncertainty.