Letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen: In Support of a Price Cap on...
The Honorable Janet L. Yellen U.S. Department of Treasury 1500 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, D.C. 20220...
View ArticleAssessment: Stacey Abrams’ Budget Plan
By Simon Johnson, Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship, MIT Sloan School of Management The plan is based on sound economic and fiscal assumptions and allows for the implementation of policy...
View ArticleImposing Sanctions on Russian Energy Exports
March 3, 2022: By Oleg Ustenko, economic advisor to the president of Ukraine, and Simon Johnson, MIT. Contact: sjohnson@mit.edu. This post is taken from a one page memo, currently circulating....
View ArticleJump-Starting America
Can the United States grow faster, create more good jobs, and genuinely spread opportunity? Yes: by investing more in science and technology, by placing those investments strategically around the...
View ArticleThe Too Big To Fail Subsidy Debate Is Over
By Simon Johnson No doubt there is still a lot of shouting to come, but this week a team at the International Monetary Fund completely nailed the issue of whether large global banks receive an implicit...
View ArticleWhat Is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Really All About?
By Simon Johnson The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between the United States and 11 other countries. It is comprised of two main parts: reductions in tariffs...
View ArticleWhy Is The White House Threatening To Veto An Imaginary Trade Promotion...
By Simon Johnson At today’s daily briefing, White House spokesman Josh Earnest communicated the president’s threat to veto any trade promotion authority (TPA) that “could undermine the independence or...
View ArticleThe Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): This Is Not About Ricardo
By Simon Johnson and Andrei Levchenko The Obama administration is lobbying hard for Congress to pass a trade promotion authority (TPA) and to quickly approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a free...
View ArticlePreventing Currency Manipulation
By Simon Johnson As Congress debates the trade promotion authority, TPA, the issue of currency manipulation remains firmly on the table. The administration and Republican leadership insist that...
View ArticleNo More Cheating: Restoring the Rule of Law in Financial Markets
By Simon Johnson The political debate about finance in the US is often cast as markets versus regulation, as if “more regulation” means the efficiency of private sector decisions will necessarily be...
View ArticleWhat Is Citigroup Hiding From Its Shareholders Now?
By Simon Johnson In the early and mid-2000s, Citigroup had compensation practices that can fairly be described as a disaster for shareholders (and for the broader economy). Top executives, such as...
View ArticleNominate A Qualified Undersecretary Of Domestic Finance Now
By Simon Johnson The Obama administration urgently needs to nominate a qualified individual as Undersecretary for Domestic Finance at the Treasury Department. The Dodd-Frank financial reforms are under...
View ArticleVote in the Democratic Shadow Primary Now: Support Elizabeth Warren
By Simon Johnson The shadow primary for the Democratic Party is in full swing. What will be the ideas, themes, and messages that win support in 2016 – and will they carry the day in the presidential...
View ArticleThe Republican Strategy To Repeal Dodd-Frank
By Simon Johnson On January 7, 2015, Day 2 of the new Congress, the House Republicans put their cards on the table with regard to the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reforms. The Republicans will chip away...
View ArticleElizabeth Warren And The Independent Community Bankers of America Are Right:...
By Simon Johnson Antonio Weiss has been nominated to become Undersecretary for Domestic Finance at the Treasury Department. A growing number of people and organizations have expressed reservations...
View ArticleCitigroup Will Be Broken Up
By Simon Johnson Citigroup is a very large bank that has amassed a huge amount of political power. Its current and former executives consistently push laws and regulations in the direction of allowing...
View ArticleDon’t Repeal Swaps Push-Out Requirements (Section 716 of Dodd-Frank)
By Simon Johnson Section 716 of the Dodd-Frank financial reform act requires that some derivative transactions be “pushed-out” from those part of banks that have deposit insurance (run by the Federal...
View ArticleAntonio Weiss Is Not Qualified To Be Under Secretary For Domestic Finance
By Simon Johnson Antonio Weiss has been nominated by President Obama to become the next Under Secretary for Domestic Finance at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Mr. Weiss’s supporters argue that he...
View ArticleA Conference On Finance For Everyone Else
By Simon Johnson It is hard to move around in Washington these days without bumping into a conference on the future of finance. But most of these are either closed to the public, or run on behalf of...
View ArticleAn Elizabeth Warren for New York
By Simon Johnson These days, almost everyone likes to complain about institutional corruption – and various forms of intellectual capture of government orchestrated by big corporate interests. But very...
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