Regulating Wall Street: Exploring the Political Economy of the Possible

Gerald Epstein and Robert Pollin

Triple Crisis blogger Gerald Epstein co-authored the following working paper with PERI co-director Robert Pollin on three areas of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act where effective regulations can be established.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in July 2010 is the most ambitious measure aimed at regulating U.S. financial markets since the Glass-Steagall Act was implemented in the midst of the 1930s Depression.  However, it remains an open question as to whether Dodd-Frank is capable of controlling the wide variety of hyper-speculative practices that produced the near total global financial collapse of 2008-09.  This is because the legislation mainly lays out a broad framework for a new financial regulatory system.  It leaves the details of implementation to ten different regulatory bodies in the U.S.  The lack of specificity in setting down new financial regulations was widely viewed as a victory for Wall Street, and equally, a defeat for proponents of a strong new regulatory system.

Read the full working paper at PERI.