The paper by Bertomeu and Magee (this issue) endogenizes accounting regulation by a majority-seeking regulator and examines how the economic cycle affects mandatory reporting quality. This discussion puts the paper in the broader context of a theory of accounting regulation. Then, it focuses on crucial assumptions, including the exogenous evolution of the economy, the role of market frictions, the modeling of reporting quality, and the regulatory process and regulatory cycles, and provides suggestions for future research

The experiences of the financial crises in the United States recently and in Japan in the 1990s suggest two lessons for future financial regulations. First, the lack of an orderly resolution mechanism for large and complex financial institutions created serious problems. Second, it is important to distinguish between individual financial institutions' health and stability of the whole financial system. Policy recommendations in the Squam Lake Report address these issues well. The Dodd–Frank Act could provide an effective regulatory framework to implement these recommendations, but the success depends on the details of the regulations that have not been specified

This paper uses newly available data on plant level regulatory status linked to the Census Longitudinal Business Database to measure the impact of changes in county level environmental regulations on plant and sector employment levels. Estimates from a variety of specifications suggest a strong connection between changes in environmental regulatory stringency and both employment growth and levels in the affected sectors. The preferred estimates suggest that changes in county level regulatory status due to the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments reduced the size of the regulated sector by as much as 15 percent in the 10 years following the changes

Estimating the cost of regulation is difficult. Firms sometimes reveal costs indirectly, however, when they exploit loopholes to avoid regulation. We apply this insight to fuel economy standards for automobiles. These standards feature a loophole that gives automakers a bonus when they equip a vehicle with flexible-fuel capacity. Profit-maximizing automakers will equate the marginal cost of compliance using the loophole, which is observable, with the unobservable costs of strategies that genuinely improve fuel economy. Based on this insight, we estimate that tightening standards by one mile per gallon would have cost automakers just 9–27 per vehicle in recent years

The issue of appropriate corporate governance framework has been a focal point of recent reforms in many countries. This study provides a comprehensive comparative analysis of corporate governance regulatory systems and their evolution since 1990 in 30 European countries and the US. It proposes a methodology to create detailed corporate governance indices which capture the major features of capital market laws in the analyzed countries. The indices indicate how the law in each country addresses various potential agency conflicts between corporate constituencies: namely, between shareholder and managers, between majority and minority shareholders, and between shareholders and bondholders. The analysis of regulatory provisions within the suggested framework enables us to understand better how corporate law works in a particular country and which strategies regulators adopt to achieve their goals. The 15-year time series of constructed indices and large country-coverage also allows us to draw conclusions about the convergence of corporate governance regimes across the countries

This paper analyses the recent global financial crisis in the context of the dual processes of market development and regulation. It discusses how, in the absence of a globally integrated financial framework, past and present regulations and interventions in reaction to national and global financial crises did not resolve the cross border regulatory arbitrage. The paper discusses how crises often lead to the emergence of new national and international institutions. It also analyses the proposed “new global framework” that needs to be in place if the policy recommendations contained in the G20 communiqué are going to be effectively implemented. The paper argues that unless international agreements are ratified by all nations and become part of national rules and laws, the presence of regulatory arbitrage and the lack of adequate cross border information and data may prevent the global economy from addressing the underlying causes of the recent global financial crisis. The paper also discusses the evolution of central banks and their new role in contributing to global financial stability. The paper argues that the recent global financial crisis has provided a unique opportunity to go beyond economic data and attempt to capture cross border financial data and other information that could assist international and national institutions to measure and manage financial risk more effectively. Finally, the paper discusses “too big to fail” and argues that only an internationally integrated financial system will make large banks global, both when operational and in the event of insolvency

This paper studies the impact of the 2003 SEC Regulation requiring shareholder approval of all equity-based executive compensation plans on executive compensation policies and practices at S&P 500 firms. Following the 2003 Regulation, firms with shareholder approved equity plans in place or those with strong performance, while not those with non-approved plans or weak performance, increase their equity compensation proposal submission activity. The quality of equity compensation proposals improves in the after-regulation period, and shareholders exhibit greater scrutiny and monitoring of executive compensation through increased voting rights. We find a decline in the equity pay component while an increase in the cash component of total executive compensation after the 2003 Regulation and also provide evidence that the 2003 Regulation contributes to this change in compensation structure

We document that the deregulation of bank branching restrictions in the United States triggered a reallocation across sectors, with end effects on state-level volatility. The change cannot be explained simply by shifts in sector-level returns and volatility. A reallocation effect is at play, which we study in the context of mean-variance portfolio theory applied to sectoral returns. We find the reallocation is particularly strong in sectors characterized by young, small and external finance dependent firms, and for states that have a larger share of such sectors. The findings suggest that improving bank access to branching affects the sectoral specialization of output, in a manner that depends on the variance-covariance properties of sectoral returns, rather than on their average only.

Despite the use of VaR as a means to control risk, regulations that constrain VaR can have an effect opposite of their intent: to increase risk taking by firms that are doing poorly. Hence VaR constraint regulations can have a destabilizing effect on the financial system. A VaR constraint on the probability that future firm equity value will be less than a floor is a constraint on the probability-of-ruin when the floor is zero. The marginal price of risk with this constraint is coherent and also additive. For a wide class of distributions, the firm—when it is doing poorly—may pay a premium for a lottery that will increase the risk of its portfolio and the opposite when the firm is doing well

This paper discusses the problems exposed by the global financial crisis in the areas of financial regulation and supervision and possible solutions. It describes and evaluates current proposals regarding the role of the central bank as a systemic regulator, the pros and the cons of locating financial supervision in the central bank, and the conflicts and synergies that such an arrangement entails. Once a crisis erupts, central bank liquidity injections constitute a first line of defense. But in the longer term these injections create a trade-off between price and financial stability, and may compromise central bank independence. Problems exposed by the crisis include the growth of a poorly regulated shadow financial system, shortermism in executive compensation packages and consequent adverse incentive effects, the too-big-to-fail problem, procyclicality in the behavior of financial institutions, conflicts of interest in the rating agencies industry and the trade-off between the scope of intermediation through securitization and transparency in the valuation of assets. The paper also discusses international dimensions including international cooperation in regulatory reform and the scope for limiting exchange rate variability. The conclusion points out inherent difficulties in distinguishing ex ante between a fundamentals based expansion and a “bubble