Not All Housing GSEs Are Alike: An Analysis of the Federal Home Loan Bank System and the Foreclosure Crisis

While the financial crisis of 2008 ultimately affected the range of U.S. financial institutions, it began with practices in home ownership finance. The Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLBank) System was the first instrumentality created by the U.S. government, in 1932, to sustain affordable home ownership finance. In this article, the authors ask what role, if any, the FHLBanks played in the subprime lending and securitization practices that precipitated the current crisis. The authors analyze publicly available FHLBank financial data in terms of a framework focused on the System's assets: advances; mortgage loans acquired from members; and investments, particularly in mortgage-backed-securities. They conclude that the FHLBanks did not contribute significantly to problematic practices. Nonetheless, they recommend consideration of three reforms to the FHLBanks to ensure a return to effective regulation and responsible, affordable home ownership finance.     

The Religious State in the Sudan: A Preliminary Characterization of the Debacle

The performance of the Islamist state in the Sudan shows clear signs of disintegration. Its totalitarian grip over the country and its population is dramatically restrained by internal and external factors that have been working together since the regime's formative years. Despite the religious nature of the regime's ideology, religion has played a key role in the discourse of its opponents. The paper outlines some of the factors that have contributed to the regime's disintegration.     

State Corporate and Federal Securities Law: Dual Regulation in a Federal System

Corporate law in the United States involves dual regulation.Although state and federal corporate law typically functionwithout mutual interference, the last thirty years have revealedpotential conflicts, chiefly in two situations. One involvescivil remedies for investors under federal securities statutes;the other is state anti-takeover regulation and its relationshipto the federal Williams Act. The postwar years until 1975 sawperhaps too much reliance on the federal component of corporateregulation. Since 1975, there has been a renaissance of statelaw. Recently, however, appreciation for state regulatory authoritymay have degenerated into hostility to the will of Congress.The authors argue that the core interpretive task in federalsecurities law is preservation of both regimes to maximum effect,because the Congress has expressly declared that state authorityshould continue adjacent to federal regulation.     

Budgeting for Time-Bombs: Recent General Accounting Office Reports on the Crises of the Nuclear Weapons Complex and the Savings and Loan Industry

This article discusses an emerging problem—how to budget for time-bombs. Time-bombs are a current or a potential disaster that requires enormous sums of funds to arrest, contain or fix. Two examples are provided: the savings and loan insolvencies and the nation's aging nuclear weapons complex. The author discusses the General Accounting Office reports on those subjects and analyzes how time-bomb budgeting has changed budget processes and decision making.     

我国城乡二元结构的制度障碍与破解之路

近年来,城乡二元经济社会结构的制度缺陷与弊端越来越凸显,已成为阻碍我国经济社会发展的巨大障碍。打破城乡分治的体制,拆除城乡分割的樊篱,要在发展战略、体制机制、制度创新等关键环节取得突破性进展。     

商业银行不良贷款产生的原因及对策研究——关于国外文献的综述

商业银行不良贷款问题一直都是伴随各国金融体系不稳定的一个现象,也是各国金融深化发展过程都可能碰到的问题.由于各国不良贷款产生的背景、根源、经济金融运转环境等方面的不同,化解的方法也就不同.本文总结了国外各个学者对不良贷款问题产生的原因及其相关化解途径的文献阐述,在此基础上得到了对我国不良贷款问题处理的些许启示.     

风险规制中的信息沟通及其制度建构

风险社会中,信息沟通作为规制工具具有独特的比较优势,但我国目前风险规制实践中对信息沟通工具的应用及相关研究才刚刚起步。风险信息沟通工具具有广阔的应用前景,有必要发展出一套体系化的制度机制,帮助规制机构有效运用信息沟通工具,通过提供、传达信息而达成所追求的规制目标。     

The European Central Bank and the COVID-19 recession

The ECB, turning a page from its sluggish response the 2008–09 financial crisis, has responded to the COVID-19 recession by quickly stabilising banks and flooding the eurozone with cheap capital. Yet the crisis has caused fiscal imbalances – most notably between Germany and Italy – to worsen, with no prospect of making political headway towards mutualising the debts of individual member states.     

大部制改革的双重目标

大部制改革包含完善官僚制和批判官僚制两个相反的目标.我国行政体制改革发展到现阶段,出现了传统封建的消极因素,与官僚制的消极因素相互交织压缩展现于一个狭小时间段里的情况,使得我国的官僚制还未得到完全的发展,批判官僚制的趋势已经开始影响改革.我们必须选择适合中国国情的改革路径,要整合大部制双重目标;同时认识到批判官僚制的改革要在现实中发挥良好作用,必须以官僚制的完善为前提,因此首先要重点完善官僚制,实现行政体制现代化,是我国行政体制改革不可逾越的阶段.     

The Dual Challenge of Integration and Inclusion

Abstract

The Government of Canada is leveraging the potential of the Internet and related technologies to offer Canadians user-centered, integrated services when and where they want them, no matter how they choose to access them (online, telephone, mail, in-person). The article provides insight into the Government of Canada's use of a “whole of government approach” to address the challenges entailed in ensuring that users' needs drive the service delivery agenda. It discusses the key enablers of service transformation, including information management, privacy, security, interoperability and performance measurement.     

银证经营体制的法律选择

我国自 90年代中期立法实行银行业与证券业分业经营模式以来 ,这种经营方式一直受到质疑 ,特别是最近两年 ,随着银证合作的加强 ,在实践中出现了混业经营的迹象 ,这引起我们对金融经营体制的重新研究。本文试图透过世界范围内银行业与证券业的分合历程 ,找出采纳不同制度的理论依据 ,为选择与完善我国银证经营体制提供参考。一、银证分离制的产生与发展———从《格拉斯—斯蒂格尔法案》开始证券业与银行业的混业经营与分业经营在许多国家都不是固定不变的。在 192 9～ 1933年世界性经济危机以前 ,世界各国证券业与银行业基本上都采用混业经…     

The interest group origins of the Bank of France

This paper contrasts different interpretations of the creation of the Bank of France. I argue that the Bank of France was the product of rent-seeking behavior rather than the pursuit of public interest, as is commonly supposed. I explain how the changing institutional constraints faced by both politicians and bankers can account for changes in France’s monetary constitution. The creation of the Bank in 1800 followed the fall of the Directory and the establishment of Napoléon’s autocratic regime. I argue that as parliamentarism and the separation of powers were weakened by Napoléon, the cost of establishing and maintaining a monopoly privilege in banking evaporated and the creation of the Bank of France became more likely.

     

The World Bank as Knowledge Bank: Analyzing the Limits of a Legitimate Global Knowledge Actor

The World Bank has always sold ideas, not just loans. Starting in 1996, then president James Wolfensohn rebranded the Bank by articulating a formal vision of a “Knowledge Bank”—a provider of state‐of‐the‐art expertise on development. After a number of internal changes and assessments, the Bank is acknowledging that it needs to be more humble, pluralistic, and practical. Why do some regard the Bank as a legitimate knowledge actor, whereas others contest that authority? We offer an analytical framework that can explain stakeholders' uneven recognition of the Bank's knowledge role. When stakeholders define knowledge as products, the Bank generally obtains recognition for the quality and quantity of the information it generates. This is the output dimension of legitimacy. On the other hand, when knowledge only counts as such to users who have been part of the process of creating it, the Bank finds itself with limited recognition.     

The Erosion of Party Politics in Britain

This article looks at the erosion of democratic practice enacted by "New" Labour in Britain under the leadership of Tony Blair. Building on the internal reforms of the 1980s, the process of Labour Party "modernization" has created an exclusive, top-down managerial style of leadership. This type of party leadership and management has far-reaching implications for British politics more generally, not least the role of political parties. The current crisis of the Conservatives and the destruction of representative democracy within the Labour Party pose serious questions regarding the medium-term future of parties as voluntary membership organizations. These changes are placed in the context of a possible longer-term transformation of British political structures in order to exchange the long-established administration of the Conservative Party for a new type of governmental machinery. The aim is not a new "traditional" party of government, but a partyless formation built around a dominant central presidential figure and his office—a change which necessitates abolishing the Labour Party and social democracy as they currently exist. It is argued that this anticipated remedy to a protracted crisis of the British state accords closely to the requirements of neoliberal economic management, while drawing upon developments in the wider global environment. However, if this is to succeed, Blair's "modernizing" tendency needs to be able to articulate a coherent ideology that strikes a popular chord. Thus far, Blair's managerial approach to politics may have scored a few points against the old party ideologies, but it has also undermined attempts to promote an alternative ideology—even one of a "partyless" nature.     

国有商业银行年薪制激励功能失灵的原因探讨

年薪制作为按管理要素分配的一种模式，成为了国有商业银行推崇的一种薪酬和激励制度。但在实施过程中，年薪制的激励有限与约束不足并存、外部公平性缺失与效率损失并存。本文从年薪结构设计欠科学、业绩考核指标体系不完善、监督和约束机制管理乏力、职位消费和灰色收入控制难、负责人道德风险和委托人一代理人博弈存在矛盾等方面对现行国有商业银行年薪制激励功能失灵的根源进行了探讨。     

TEMPEST and the Bank of England

Since the major British banks first purchased computers in the 1960s, they have been concerned with the security challenges that these machines presented. One of the most potent risks was TEMPEST, the discovery that computers emitted radiation which could reveal the content of information processed by them, even if it had been encrypted. Archival material recently uncovered within the Bank of England’s archives from the mid-late 1970s is presented here to provide a first look at how the Bank evaluated the credibility of the threat posed by TEMPEST and how it sought to manage this new risk.