House Subcommittee Hearing on Financial Regulation's Impact on International Competitiveness (with Delta Strategy Group Summary and Lofchie Comment)
The House Financial Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee held a hearing titled "The Growth of Financial Regulation and Its Impact on International Competitiveness." The hearing discussed the cumulative impact of regulations on financial institutions offering products and services in the U.S. Additionally, the hearing reviewed the extent to which differences between domestic and foreign regulatory regimes make it more difficult for U.S. financial institutions to compete with non-U.S. firms and, in turn, decrease the attractiveness of U.S. financial markets.
The following witnesses testified:
- Ms. Louise C. Bennetts, Associate Director, Financial Regulation Studies, Cato Institute
- Mr. Alon Hillel-Tuch, Co-Founder and Chief Financial Officer, RocketHub
- Mr. Peter J. Wallison, Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Financial Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute
- Professor Michael S. Barr, Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Lofchie Comment: The panelists were united in their views that heavy financial regulation was doing damage to the U.S. economy. The comments published in the Cabinet over the past several years concur. The panelists were largely academics; this is the kind of topic on which market participants could add value.To get a better sense of how the market views the risk to the US economy, it has been suggested that U.S. regulators hire an independent research firm to conduct an anonymous poll of non-U.S. institutions and ask whether Dodd-Frank increases the safety of U.S. markets as it relates to investing. The results of such a poll might likely be disappointing to anyone who thinks that Dodd-Frank is perceived by knowledgeable outsiders as contributing to the safety of our markets.
Click here to view a summary of the hearing prepared by Delta Strategy Group.See:Hearing Memorandum; Archived Webcast of Hearing.