Federal Reserve System ("FRB") Governor Jerome Powell reviewed the regulatory response to the global financial crisis and offered his perspective on the state of current financial market infrastructure and possible regulatory adjustments going forward.
In a speech before the Global Finance Forum, Mr. Powell praised those who aggressively responded to the financial crisis as having prevented another depression. At the time, he noted, the two primary tasks were to "get the economy growing again" and address the "many structural weaknesses" in the financial system. Mr. Powell noted that while job growth has been strong and the U.S. has not had another recession, there has been a labor productivity slowdown associated with "weak investment and a decline in output gains from technological innovation." To address this, Mr. Powell called for a "national focus on increasing the sustainable growth rate of our economy."
Mr. Powell stated that the financial system has improved and stabilized primarily because of (i) higher levels of quality capital held, (ii) higher levels of liquidity held, (iii) capital stress testing, (iv) resolution planning (i.e., living wills), and (v) the "greater transparency and more consistent risk management" that comes with the central clearing of interest rate and credit default swaps. He argued that these core reforms should be protected, but called for certain regulatory adjustment in instances where new regulations have been inappropriately difficult for smaller firms or otherwise inefficient, adding:
"Some aspects of the new regulatory program are proving unnecessarily burdensome and should be better tailored to meet our objectives. Some provisions may not be needed at all given the broad scope of what we have put in place. I support adjustments designed to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of regulation without sacrificing safety and soundness . . ."
Commentary / Steven Lofchie
Mr. Powell joins a steadily increasing number of regulators who are conceding that Dodd-Frank has had some material negative effects. These concessions lay the groundwork for a rational discussion of how financial regulation may be improved - a welcome change from eight years in which "improvement in regulation" and "more regulation" were purported to be synonymous concepts.
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