Economist: Robert E. Litan

Academic, Author, Economist, Journalist, People

Robert E. Litan Robert Litan is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he has previously been a Senior Fellow on staff, and Vice President and Director of Economic Studies. His current research focuses on federal regulation, entrepreneurship, and a broad range of economic policy subjects.

Litan is also a practicing attorney, as a partner with the law firm of Korein, Tillery, based in St. Louis and Chicago. He previously was a partner, Of counsel and associate with two Washington, D.C. law firms, and served during the first term of the Clinton Administration as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department, where he oversaw civil non-merger litigation and the Department’s positions on regulatory matters, primarily in telecommunications. Continue reading “Economist: Robert E. Litan”

Testimony: Kauffman Foundation on ETFs Danger to Capital Formation

Testimony

ETFs and the Present Danger to Capital Formation

Prepared Testimony by Harold Bradley and Robert E. Litan

Before the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance, and Investments

ETFs have increasingly distorted the role of equities
markets in capital formation, while posing systemic risks from potential
settlement failures.

Continue reading “Testimony: Kauffman Foundation on ETFs Danger to Capital Formation”

Paper: Canaries in the Coal Mine: How the Rise in Settlement ‘Fails’ Creates Systemic Risk for Financial Firms and Investors

Paper

Canaries in the Coal Mine: How the Rise in Settlement ‘Fails’ Creates Systemic Risk for Financial Firms and Investors

Harold S. Bradley, Robert A. Fawls, Robert E. Litan

Kauffman Foundation, 2 March 2011

Our central conclusion is this: Every fail introduces a cumulative and potentially compounding liquidity risk into the orderly process of settling the $7.5 trillion of security transactions completed each day, which could be especially dangerous during times when financial institutions are short of liquidity (as was true during the financial crisis of 2008).

PDF (18 Pages):  Kauffman Canaries in the Coal Mine

Paper: Choking the Recovery: Why New Growth Companies Aren’t Going Public and Unrecognized Risks of Future Market Disruptions

Paper

Choking the Recovery: Why New Growth Companies Aren’t Going Public and Unrecognized Risks of Future Market Disruptions

Harold S. Bradley and Robert E. Litan

Kauffman Foundation, 8 November 2010

We show here that ETFs are radically changing the markets, to the point where they, and not the trading of the underlying securities, are effectively setting the prices of stocks of smaller capitalization companies, or the potential new growth companies of the future. In the process, ETFs that once were an important low-cost way for investors to assemble diversified stock holdings are now undermining the traditional price discovery role of exchanges and, in turn, discouraging new companies from wanting to be listed on U.S. exchanges.

Continue reading “Paper: Choking the Recovery: Why New Growth Companies Aren’t Going Public and Unrecognized Risks of Future Market Disruptions”

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