Accounting standards, credit ratings, and credit-default swaps were created to help facilitate financial transactions by fostering trust. In the run-up to the credit-market freeze of 2008 those assurance mechanisms collapsed under the weight of political and regulatory pressures to aggressively expand homeownership and other policies.

Bruce Yandle is Alumni Distinguished Professor of Economics, Emeritus and Dean Emeritus, Clemson University and co-editor of Regulation and the Reagan Era.
Antitrust, Competition, and MonopolyBanking Law and RegulationEconomic History and DevelopmentEconomic PolicyEconomyFiscal Policy/DebtLaw and Liberty
Other Independent Review articles by Bruce Yandle
Fall 2022 Gaining Ground: Markets Helping Government
Summer 2020 The Next Fifty Years: Optimistic or Pessimistic?
Spring 2020 Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events
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