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Studies of Depression-era financial remediation have generally focused on federal deposit insurance and the provision of equity to banks by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). This paper broadens the concept of financial remediation to include other programs – RFC lending, federal guarantees of farm and home mortgages, and the elimination of interest on demand deposits – and other intermediaries – savings and loans, mutual savings banks, and life insurance companies. The benefits of remediation or the amounts potentially at risk to the government in these programs are calculated annually and allocated to the various intermediaries. The slow remediation of real estate loans (two-thirds of these intermediaries' loans) needs further study with respect to the slow economic recovery. The paper compares Depression-era remediation with efforts during the 2008–2009 crisis. Today's remediation contrasts with the 1930s in its speed, magnitude relative to GDP or private sector nonfinancial debt, the share of remediation going to nonbanks, and emphasis on securities markets.

Here the author proposes the Mutual Insurance Model with Incentive Compatibility (MIMIC). MIMIC is a model for deposit insurance that mimics the incentives and practices of a private sector, mutual, insurance organisation. The main features of MIMIC are: fully risk‐based premiums, payments by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to the US Treasury Department (the Treasury) for its line of credit and ‘catastrophe insurance’, rebates to banks when the reserve ratio exceeds a risk‐based ceiling, surcharges on banks when the reserve ratio dips below a risk‐based floor, dilution fees on deposit growth to maintain reserve ratio and refunds to banks to maintain reserve ratio when their deposits shrink.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the structure, regulation, and performance of banks in the EU and G‐10 countries. This enables one to identify any significant differences in the structure of banking in the nineteen separate countries comprising these two groups. The regulatory, supervisory, and deposit‐insurance environment in which banks operate in each of these countries is also compared and contrasted. This enables one to identify any significant differences in the regulatory environment that may help explain the structure of banking in the various countries. Beyond this, the effect of the overall structural and regulatory environment on individual bank performance is investigated in order to evaluate the appropriateness of existing regulations in individual countries and any proposals for reforming them. Hence, an exploratory empirical analysis based upon a sample of banks in the different countries is conducted to assess the effect of the different “regulatory regimes” on the performance of individual banks, controlling for various bank‐specific and country‐specific factors that may also affect bank performance. In this way, the paper attempts to contribute to an assessment of the appropriate balance between market and regulatory discipline to ensure that banks have sufficient opportunities to compete prudently and profitability in a competitive and global financial marketplace. In the process of conducting such an assessment, the paper necessarily provides information as to whether the U.S. is “out‐of‐step” with banking developments in other industrial countries.

Reference materials in the area of money and banking have ordinarily been lumped under the category of general reference books in economics and business. This is understandable because most of the required data can be obtained from books dealing with the latter. There are, however, numerous government and private sources which deal exclusively with banking and monetary statistics. This, coupled with their highly specialized character, justifies a separate treatment. We may being by examining a few directories, among which, Moody's Bank and Finance Manual is one of the better known and most widely used. Its coverage extends to banks, insurance and real estate companies, real estate investment trusts and miscellaneous financial enterprises. The section on banks gives the latest available accounts of nearly 3000 banks, with the history of the institution from the date of the charter, absorptions, capital history, dividend payments and price ranges. More than 3000 smaller banks are listed with essential details. The manual includes information on the chartered banks of Canada, the principal banks of England, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and South America. The insurance section covers all phases of insurance business, like underwriting and investment, assets and liabilities, gains and losses, and types of business written. Federal credit regulatory agencies such as the Federal Reserve System, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal National Mortgage Association, Federal Home Loan Bank Board and others are treated in considerable detail. As with the other Moody's manuals, the center section contains composite banking and monetary data such as a ten‐year range of banking stocks and bonds and lists of 300 largest banks, 100 largest mutual savings banks, 100 largest life insurance companies and 100 largest savings and loan associations. Also included are stock averages and distribution of assets and investments of insurance companies.

This paper examines the role of professional associations, governmental agencies, and international accounting and auditing bodies in promulgating standards to deter and detect fraud, domestically and abroad. Specifically, it focuses on the role played by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), the US Government Accounting Office (GAO), and other national and foreign professional associations, in promulgating auditing standards and procedures to prevent fraud in financial statements and other white‐collar crimes. It also examines several fraud cases and the impact of management and employee fraud on the various business sectors such as insurance, banking, health care, and manufacturing, as well as the role of management, the boards of directors, the audit committees, auditors, and fraud examiners and their liability in the fraud prevention and investigation.

Having been hailed as the most important contribution to stabilising the US financial system after the 1929—33 crash, deposit insurance is now being blamed for financial destabilisation, particularly in emerging markets. This paper focuses on the relationship between deposit insurance and systemic stability in the banking system, drawing on recent experience in the USA, Europe and Japan. The conclusion is that if there is an embedded perception that in the last resort depositors will be protected beyond insurance limits then market‐orientated solution to the problems of ‘moral hazard’ and excessive risk taking cannot work.

Financial assurance rules, also known as financial responsibility or bonding requirements, foster cost internalization by requiring potential polluters to demonstrate the financial resources necessary to compensate for environmental damage that may arise in the future. Accordingly, assurance is an important complement to liability rules, restoration obligations, and other regulatory compliance requirements. The paper reviews the need for assurance, given the prevalence of abandoned environmental obligations, and assesses the implementation of assurance rules in the United States. From the standpoint of both legal effectiveness and economic efficiency, assurance rules can be improved. On the whole, however, cost recovery, deterrence, and enforcement are significantly improved by the presence of existing assurance regulations.

This study aims to identify factors influencing the bank failure rate in the USA over the period from 1970 to 2014 with an emphasis on economic/financial factors on the one hand and on banking legislation on the other hand. Regarding the latter, this study empirically investigates four major banking statutes: the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977; the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980; the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991; and the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994. After adopting the technique of generalized method of moments (GMM), a robustness check in the form of autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) is undertaken. Overall, the estimations imply that the bank failure rate was a decreasing function of the percentage growth rate of real gross domestic product (GDP) and the real interest rate yields on both three-month US Treasury bills and 30-year fixed-rate mortgages and an increasing function of the real cost of funds. In addition, there is strong evidence that the bank failure rate was increased by provisions in the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 and the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980, whereas the bank failure rate was decreased as a result of provisions in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991 and the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994. Finally, there also is evidence that higher federal budget deficits elevated the bank failure rate.

After modeling the bank failure rate as a function of financial/economic variables and banking legislation, the times series from 1970 to 2014 is estimated by GMM and then by the ARCH techniques.

The results of the GMM and ARCH estimations imply that the bank failure rate in the US was a decreasing function of the percentage growth rate of real GDP as well as the real interest rate yields on both three-month US Treasury bills and 30-year fixed-rate mortgages and an increasing function of the real cost of funds. Furthermore, there is strong empirical support indicating that the bank failure rate was elevated by various provisions in the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 and in the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980, while the bank failure rate was reduced by certain provisions in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991 and the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994. There also is evidence that higher federal budget deficits increased the bank failure rate.

This study is the most contemporary (1970-2014) analysis of potential causes of the bank failure rate in the USA. The study also may be the first to apply the GMM and GARCH models to the problem. Also, some interesting policy implications are provided in the Conclusion.

At the time they occurred, the savings and loan insolvencies were considered the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Contrary to what was then believed, and in sharp contrast with 2007–2009, they in fact had little macroeconomic significance. Savings and Loan (S&L) remediation cost between 2 percent and 3 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), whereas the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and the conservatorships of Fannie and Freddie actually made money for the US Treasury. But the direct cost of government remediation is largely irrelevant in judging macro significance. What matters is the cumulative output loss associated with and plausibly caused by failing financial institutions. I estimate output losses for 1981–1984, 1991–1998, and 2007–2026 (the latter utilizing forecasts and projections along with actual data through 2015) and, for a final comparison, 1929–1941. The losses associated with 2007–2009 have been truly disastrous – in the same order of magnitude as the Great Depression. The S&L failures were, in contrast, inconsequential. Macroeconomists and policy makers should reserve the word crisis for financial disturbances that threaten substantial damage to the real economy, and continue efforts to identify in advance financial institutions which are systemically important (SIFI), and those which are not.

The chapter is prepared on the basis of previous scientific developments of the author, as well as the current legislation of the United States of America. The following laws were studied: Truth in Lending Act; Electronic Fund Transfers Act; Fair Credit Reporting Act; Consumer Leasing Act; Consumer Protection Act; Equal Credit Opportunity Act; Fair Debt Collection Practices Act; Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act; Privacy of Consumer Financial Information Act; Home Mortgage Disclosure Act; Alternative Mortgage Parity Act; Code of Arbitration Procedure for Customer Conflicts – Customer Code; and Code of Arbitration Procedure for Industry Conflicts. One of the new US laws was analyzed – Arbitration Fairness Act, 2017. Data was also used from the Final Report to Congress on the use of pre-dispute arbitration clauses in consumer financial services contracts, 2015, and information resources available on the websites of financial regulators: the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Currency Comptroller, the National Administration of Credit Unions, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Agency for Housing Finance, the Financial Bureau Consumer Protection, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and American Arbitration Association.

Methodologically, the research is based on the author's materialistic worldview, which is implemented meaningfully in a positivist approach to the scientific article. In preparing the chapter, general scientific methods were applied: formal logic, system-functional, historical, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction; special methods: mathematical, and statistical. Also the author applied private scientific methods of jurisprudence: normative-dogmatic, method of legal and technical design, interpretation of law, and others.