Special Collections

From time to time we will offer special packages of reports, each focused on a single subject or period.  Two such packages are now available: one on capital regulation and the other on financial modernization.  Each is separately bound and priced at $45 plus postage and handling.

Not all reports dealing with capital regulation are included in the first package.  The six that were selected were written over a 27-year period.  They are:

Vol. 1974-4 Capital Adequacy: The Search for Certainty

Vol. 1984-8 Capital Myopia [capital regulation replaces deposit interest regulation]

Vol. 1988-2 Some Questions About the Federal Reserve Board’s Risk-Based Capital Guidelines
 

Vol. 1991-6 The Basle Committee and the Regulation of U.S. Banks

Vol. 1998-3 Reforming Bank Capital Regulation: Some First Impressions

Vol. 2001-5&6 Reforming Bank Capital Regulation: The Great Leap Forward

          The reports have not been edited to remove overlaps, or to correct or change interpretations that time may have revealed to be faulty.  Taken together, they tell the story of how bank capital graduated from occupying a minor, rather fuzzy, position in the arsenal of bank regulators to its present position of unchallengeable authority.  The titles almost tell the story by themselves.  The most recent report discusses where we are today, as the Basel Committee (the spelling of “Basel” has in recent years taken the German form) wrestles with nailing down the supremacy of bank capital regulation within the next several years.  Our view (in 2002) of the prospect for success by the Committee is dim -- or grim.

          The second package now available consists of five reports (including one double report) that appeared during the years 1995-2000.  These are:

Vol. 95-2                Troublesome Myths of Banking: I

Vol. 95-3&4            Troublesome Myths of Banking: II

Vol. 97-10              The Battle for Financial Modernization

(II): A View From Afar

Vol. 99-9               Financial Modernization Legislation:

The End of the Beginning

(Includes a six-page statutory appendix prepared by Barnett & Sivon, P.C.)

Vol. 00-4               The Myths of Gramm-Leach-Bliley

          The modernization of banking laws has been a frequent subject of The Golembe Reports since their inception.  The present package relates primarily to efforts to eliminate outmoded restrictions on bank powers and to reduce or eliminate artificial barriers between financial institutions that are engaged in essentially the same activity: moving funds from where they are available to where they are needed.  The first two reports in this package focus on the history of such limitations; the latter three deal with the enactment of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999, which ostensibly repealed the Glass-Steagall limitations but may have had its greatest effect on the distribution of bank regulatory authority among the three federal banking agencies.  It is no accident that the package begins and ends with the subject of banking myths.

We are presently considering several other packages.  Moreover we are quite interested in receiving suggestions for special collections from potential users.  The Golembe Library contains a complete list of all report titles, beginning with 1967.  Any theme, period, or significant public policy initiative of special interest to those examining these titles should be forwarded  to us.  We will be happy to give serious consideration to construction of a special collection in such instances, with no charge to the suggestor for the finished product.  The "order form" contains space for suggestions.