Greater Regulation of Financial Markets?

The major deregulation movement of the past 100 years started with the Ford and Carter administrations in the 1970s, and continued through the Reagan years. This movement came to an end with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 under the administration of George W. Bush. Since then some sectors, such as labor markets and product safety, have been regulated much more extensively, while others, including commercial and investment banking, have had no further declines in the extent of regulation. Despite the considerable and tangible successes of this deregulation movement, the pressure is intense to significantly increase the regulations affecting consumer safety, the introduction of new drugs, and especially financial markets.

The 1970s saw a bipartisan reduction in the regulation of airline travel, trucking, security exchanges, and commercial banking. Measures of the success of this deregulation include sharp declines in the cost of air travel and of shipping goods by truck, huge reductions in commissions on stock transactions, and higher interest rates on bank deposits. Not only has no serious attempt been made to re-regulate these activities, but also European and many other nations on all continents have copied the American deregulation of airlines and securities.  

The impetus to tighter regulations varies from sector to sector, although there is a growing belief that many activities are insufficiently regulated. Obviously, the current turmoil in the financial sector is stimulating many proposals to regulate extensively various types of financial transactions. Yet it is not obvious that the problems in the financial sector resulted mainly because of insufficient regulation. For example, commercial banks are probably the most heavily regulated group in the financial sector, yet they are in much greater difficulties than say the hedge fund industry, which is one of the least regulated industries in the financial sector. Banks participated very extensively in originating mortgages, including subprime mortgages, and in buying mortgage-backed securities, and so they are suffering from the high foreclosure rates, and the sharp decline in the market value of these securities.

One reason why extensive regulation of commercial banks did not prevent many banks from getting into trouble is that bank examiners became optimistic along with banks about the risks associated with mortgages and other bank assets because the market priced these assets as if they carried little risk. It would run counter to human nature for regulators to take a skeptical attitude toward the riskiness of various assets when the market is indicating that these assets are not so risky, and when originating and holding these assets has been quite profitable. One can expect regulators to mainly follow rather than lead the market in assessing riskiness and other asset characteristics.

To some extent that was also true of the Fed\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s behavior during the past few years. I believe that Alan Greenspan is right in claiming that the main cause of the housing boom was not the Fed\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s actions but the worldwide low interest rates due to an abundant world supply of savings. The demand for very durable assets like housing is greatly increased by low interest rates. Still, the Fed seems to have contributed to the booming demand for housing and other assets by keeping the federal funds rate artificially low during the boom years of 2003-05.

In evaluating the need for greater financial regulation, one should also not forget that the American economy greatly outperformed the European and Japanese economies during the past 25 years. Might that not be related in part to the fact that the United States led the way with major financial innovations like investment banks, hedge funds, futures and derivative markets, and private equity funds that were only lightly regulated? An infrequent period of financial turmoil may be the price that has to be paid for more rapid growth in income and low unemployment. Rapid income and employment growth might be worth an occasional period of turmoil especially if they do not lead to prolonged slowdowns in the real part of the economy. So far the effects on GDP and employment have not been severe, although the financial distress is not yet completely over. 

Nevertheless, a few important regulatory changes are probably warranted. For the first time the Fed allowed investment banks access to its federal funds window, and the Fed guaranteed $29 billion worth of mortgage-backed assets to induce J.P. Morgan to take over that investment company. Since these types of Fed actions would likely be repeated in the event of future financial turmoil, investment banks would have an incentive to take on additional risk since they can reasonably expect to be helped out by the Fed in the future. For this reason it might be desirable for the government to impose upper bounds on the permissible ratios of assets to equity held by investment banks. The ratio of assets to the equity of the five leading investment banks did increase greatly from about 23 in 2004 to the highly leveraged level of 30 in 2007.

Other regulations of financial institutions may also be merited, but elaborate new regulations of the financial sector would be counterproductive. For example, the Fed has proposed limits on how much mortgage interest rates can exceed the prime rate for low-income borrowers with poor credit ratings. This would be a foolish intervention into the details of credit contracts that have all the defects of usury laws.

加里·贝克尔：金融市场需要更强的监管吗？

过去100年中主要的放松管制浪潮始于20世纪70年代福特和卡特政府时期，一直持续到里根时代，直到在乔治·布什政府时期，1990年颁布《美国残疾人法案》后才告一段落。从那以后，一些领域，如劳动力市场和生产安全开始有了更深入的管制规范，与此同时在其它一些领域包括商业和投资银行业并没有因为管制的波及有很大的衰退。尽管取消管制运动取得了切实可观的效果，但是在加强消费者安全方面的监管还存在着很大的压力。比如，新药的引进，特别是对金融市场的监管。

20世纪70年代，美国民主共和两党达成共识，放松了对航空旅行、货运、证券交易和商业银行的管制。放松管制取得成功的措施包括：航空旅行和货车运输成本的急剧下调、大幅度消减股票交易佣金、更高的银行存款利率。不但美国无意重新管制这些领域，而且欧洲和其它各大洲很多其它国家效仿了美国的行为，放松了对航空和证券业的管制。

加强管制的力度在各个领域都不相同，尽管人们认为还有很多地方管制的还不够。很明显，金融领域最近的危机刺激了很多对金融交易各个方面进行管制的建议出现。然而金融领域的问题并不主要是因为管制不足造成的。比如，商业银行是金融领域管制最重部分，然后它们却比对冲基金业面临更多严重的麻烦，而对冲基金业是金融业里管制最少的部分了。银行广泛的参与了放贷业务，其中包括次级抵押贷款，并参与了购买抵押证券。最终他们因为极高的丧失抵押赎回权比率而蒙受损失，这些证券的市场价值也急剧下滑。

 
对商业银行广泛的管制并没有阻止其陷入困境的一个原因是银行审查人员和银行一样对贷款和其它资产的风险都变得很乐观，因为这些资产的市场价格显示其风险似乎非常小。当市场显示这些资产的风险并不大，发行和持有这些资产是十分有利可图时，监管者此时却对这些资产持怀疑态度，这显然人性背道而驰的。可以看出，在风险和其它的资产特征的分析上，监管者不但不是引路人反而成了跟风者。

 
从某种程度上说美联储过去几年的做法也是正确的。我相信艾伦·格林斯潘的话是对的，即主张房市的急速繁荣主要不是因为美联储的原因，而是因为全球存款储备的充裕供应引致的全世界的低利率。由于低利率，对如房屋这样非常耐用的资产的需求大幅增加。然而，美联储由于在2003至2005年的快速繁荣时期保持了较低的联邦基金利率，这看上去像是导致人们对住房和其它资产需求暴增的原因。

当我们评估是否需要更强的金融管制的时候，我们也不能忘记了在过去25年美国经济大大地超过了欧洲和日本经济的发展水平。这或许与美国在金融领域的创新没多大关系？这些创新包括：投资银行、对冲基金、期货及衍生品市场，以及私人股权基金，它们都只受到很少的管制。偶有发生的金融危机，可能是为了收入更快速的增长以及低失业率而不得不付出的代价。收入增加和就业上升也许是值得人们为此经历一个短暂的金融危机，特别是当它们并不会对造成经济实质性的持续减速时。到目前为止，对GDP和就业的影响还没有特别严峻，虽然这场金融危机还没有完全结束。

然而，对一些管制措施的重要调整是有必要。美联储首次允许投资银行接近他们的联邦基金窗口，并对价值290亿的抵押资产提供担保以吸引J.P.摩根接管这家投资公司（贝尔斯登）。由于美联储这次的行为在未来的金融危机中很可能会重复出现，这使得投资银行有了去承受额外风险的激励，因为他们会理性地期望在外来政府依然会帮助他们(摆脱困境)。因此，对政府来说限制投资银行的资产权益比率的上限，使其在一个可容忍的范围之内的做法是必要的。五家最大的投资银行的资产权益比率从2004年的23大幅度增加到2007年的30这一影响巨大的高位。

出台针一些针对其它金融体系中的管制措施也是必要的，但是复杂精细的新的规例很可能会产生适得其反。例如，美联储曾提议将低信用评级的低收入的贷款者的按揭利率超出最优惠利率的范围做一个限制。这是一个愚蠢的干预，信用合约的细节包含了所有可能触犯高利贷发的情况

金融部门通过管理、区分和评估不同的经济风险很好地为经济发展服务。国会和总统如果对现在的金融危机过度恐慌以至于出台新的无效率的金融政策，那将是一个错误。