With the U.S. government deficit hovering around a trillion and a half dollars, our nation's creditworthiness is coming under increased scrutiny.

The Securities and Exchange Commission designates certain credit rating agencies as “nationally recognized statistical ratings organizations” (NRSROs). It has been argued that this designation inhibits competition and has effectively created a government-sponsored cartel. Currently only two firms—Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s—represent about eighty percent of sector revenue. In an effort...

At this event, panelists discussed how to prevent the next real estate bubble.

In response to the bursting of the housing and credit market bubbles, the Federal Reserve has resorted to an array of unorthodox policy measures. Interest rates have been cut at a record pace, a rescue of Bear Stearns was orchestrated, and policy measures not used since the 1930s have resurfaced.

Panelists...

Are ratings agencies to blame for the current mortgage crisis?

While economies all over the globe are facing tough times, Russia's symptoms appear to be particularly acute. The current financial crisis closed the Russian stock exchange on multiple occasions, and Russia's stock market plummeted to one-third of its value in June. The price of oil, Russia's prime export commodity and...

Since the beginning of the subprime meltdown, policymakers, housing experts, and economists have been looking for data that would enable them to predict housing price declines for individual states and for the nation as a whole. To date, no academic study has offered a quantitative basis for evaluating the potential...

A fiscal crisis threatens to engulf the federal budget, jeopardizing the health and vigor of the American economy. When the next president and Congress take office in January 2009, they will face one crucial question that has been almost absent from the current election campaign: how to close the enormous...