regulatory arbitrage

Between 1985 and 2018, the global average statutory corporate tax rate fell by more than half. This column uses new macroeconomic data to argue that profit shifting is a key driver of this decline. Close to 40% of multinational profits were…

This is a thought piece. And so it’s going to be relatively) brief since I haven’t fleshed out all of my ideas here. But I want to run something by you based on a piece Matt Klein wrote over at FT Alphaville on macro policy. Let me point to…

The JOBS Act is insane on many levels. It creates an extraordinarily criminogenic environment in which securities fraud will become even more out of control. One of the forms of insanity is the belief that one can “win” a regulatory…

The downfall of MF Global has exposed yet another patch of the underbelly of the brokerage industry. Practices that are routine and legal – and hitherto largely unknown to most investors – can leave a company vulnerable when abused.

Andrew Haldane, in my opinion, generally has the right idea about banks and their risks, which are risks not just “to themselves” but to all of society and the global economy. Yet here Haldane’s endorsing the sort of sleight of hand that…

Globally, coincident data is already slowing visibly across the globe with headline PMI readings and trade data coming in steadily lower. In that sense we are up against the wall again only so shortly after the shock of 2008/09 and this…

If firms that defrauded their customers gained a competitive advantage over their honest rivals private market discipline became perverse and drove honest firms into bankruptcy. The CEOs that lead accounting control frauds create…

Unless the ECB takes fast and dramatic action, it risks destroying the currency it is paid to manage, and allowing a political catastrophe to unfold in Europe. If mishandled, Ireland could all too easily become a sovereign version of…

As the details of the agreement struck by the key House and Senate conference on financial reform has been embraced favorably by the US equity market, that is being led by the financials, and the foreign currencies.    In the…

Marshall Auerback warns that unchecked speculation and fraud are threatening the European Monetary Union. Marshall Auerback here with a post which I originally published at New Deal 2.0 Surprise, surprise: Wall Street tactics akin to the…