A working area of the Financial Regulatory Reform Initiative

Objective

The initiative will examine the financial regulatory architecture created after passage of the Dodd-Frank Act and measure it against a stated public policy objective. The preliminary objective is to establish a financial regulatory system that fosters national economic and financial objectives that promote coordination among financial regulators while avoiding unnecessary complexity, duplication of effort and regulatory gridlock.

Strategic Approach

The initiative will assess whether Dodd-Frank empowered regulators with clearly identified missions and appropriate authority to carry out those responsibilities. It will examine whether overlapping missions and regulatory gaps remain. It will identify, as appropriate, opportunities to streamline the existing regulatory system to eliminate redundancy, ensure greater accountability and fill in gaps in the regulatory system.

Preliminary Issues

• FSOC’s structure and membership
• Capital market regulation
• Insurance regulation
• Regulator consolidation
• Agency funding mechanisms

Research Questions

• Is FSOC structured appropriately to achieve its needed level of independence?
• What is the appropriate division of authority between federal and state regulators?
• Should financial regulators remain subject to annual Congressional appropriations?
• Do we have too many, too few, or the appropriate number of bank regulators?
• Would consolidation of the capital markets regulators be desirable?

Deliverables

The initiative will release a white paper that recommends making modifications to the regulatory architecture after Dodd-Frank and will recommend changes to the Act to the extent that the Act deviates from or conflicts with the stated objective for regulatory architecture.