Global systemically important banks (G-SIBs) are the largest, most complex and, in the event of their potential failure, most threatening banking institutions in the world. The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) was a turning point for G-SIBs, many of which contributed to the outbreak and severity of this downturn. The unfolding of the GFC also revealed flaws and omissions in the legal framework applying to financial entities. In the context of G-SIBs, it clearly demonstrated that the legal regimes, both in the USA and in the EU, grossly ignored the specific character of these institutions and their systemic importance, complexity, and individualism. As a result of this omission, these megabanks were long treated like any other smaller banking institutions. Since the GFC, legal systems have changed a lot on both sides of the Atlantic, and global and national lawmakers have adopted new rules applying specifically to G-SIBs to reduce their threat to financial stability. This book explores whether the G-SIB-specific regulatory frameworks are adequately tailored to their individualism in order to prevent them from exploiting overly general rules, as they did during the GFC. Analyzing the specific character and individualism of G-SIBs, in relation to their history, normal functioning, as well as their operations during the GFC, this book discusses transformation of banking systems and the challenges and opportunities G-SIBs face, such as Big Tech competitors, climate-related requirements, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Taking a multidisciplinary approach which combines financial aspects of operations of G- SIBs and legal analysis, the book describes G-SIB-oriented legal frameworks of the EU and the USA and assesses whether G-SIB individualism is adequately reflected, analyzing trends in supervisory action when it comes to discretion in the G-SIB context, all in order to contribute to the ongoing discussions about international banking law, its problems, and potential remedies to such persistent flaws.

In Taming the Megabanks, Arthur E. Wilmarth, Jr. argues that we must break up universal banks by enacting a new Glass-Steagall Act. Drawing from an analysis of the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-09, Wilmarth demonstrates that a new Glass-Steagall Act would make our financial system much more stable and less likely to produce boom-and-bust cycles.

In spite of its key role in creating the ruinous financial crisis of 2008, the American banking industry has grown bigger, more profitable, and more resistant to regulation than ever. Anchored by six megabanks whose assets amount to more than 60 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, this oligarchy proved it could first hold the global economy hostage and then use its political muscle to fight off meaningful reform. 13 Bankers brilliantly charts the rise to power of the financial sector and forcefully argues that we must break up the big banks if we want to avoid future financial catastrophes. Updated, with additional analysis of the government’s recent attempt to reform the banking industry, this is a timely and expert account of our troubled political economy.

The United States has two separate banking systems today—one serving the well-to-do and another exploiting everyone else. How the Other Half Banks contributes to the growing conversation on American inequality by highlighting one of its prime causes: unequal credit. Mehrsa Baradaran examines how a significant portion of the population, deserted by banks, is forced to wander through a Wild West of payday lenders and check-cashing services to cover emergency expenses and pay for necessities—all thanks to deregulation that began in the 1970s and continues decades later. “Baradaran argues persuasively that the banking industry, fattened on public subsidies (including too-big-to-fail bailouts), owes low-income families a better deal...How the Other Half Banks is well researched and clearly written...The bankers who fully understand the system are heavily invested in it. Books like this are written for the rest of us.” —Nancy Folbre, New York Times Book Review “How the Other Half Banks tells an important story, one in which we have allowed the profit motives of banks to trump the public interest.” —Lisa J. Servon, American Prospect

Examining the subject from a holistic and multidisciplinary perspective, Principles of Financial Regulation considers the underlying policies and the objectives of financial regulation.

Why stable banking systems are so rare Why are banking systems unstable in so many countries—but not in others? The United States has had twelve systemic banking crises since 1840, while Canada has had none. The banking systems of Mexico and Brazil have not only been crisis prone but have provided miniscule amounts of credit to business enterprises and households. Analyzing the political and banking history of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil through several centuries, Fragile by Design demonstrates that chronic banking crises and scarce credit are not accidents. Calomiris and Haber combine political history and economics to examine how coalitions of politicians, bankers, and other interest groups form, why they endure, and how they generate policies that determine who gets to be a banker, who has access to credit, and who pays for bank bailouts and rescues. Fragile by Design is a revealing exploration of the ways that politics inevitably intrudes into bank regulation.

The former FDIC Chairwoman, and one of the first people to acknowledge the full risk of subprime loans, offers a unique perspective on the greatest crisis the U.S. has faced since the Great Depression.