A Simple Fix for a Complex Problem? Comments on Morgan Ricks, The Money Problem: Rethinking Financial Regulation

The financial crisis of 2007–2009 left scholars and policy analysts scrambling to explain what went wrong. While a variety of stories have been told, none have seemed like they could account for the magnitude of the collapse in securities values, or the devastation the collapse caused to the performance of whole economies around the globe, nor could they offer a clear path to reform. Legislation passed to reform the financial system in the U.S. is extraordinarily complex, and still very controversial. Now, however, Morgan Ricks’ new book, The Money Problem: Rethinking Financial Regulation, cuts through the complexity to offer a relatively simple but compelling explanation – the crisis was a consequence of an old-fashioned run on the “bank”, which, in this case, was the shadow banking system rather than regular banks. The solution is the same as the solution that prevented major financial crises in the U.S. from the 1930s to 2007 – government insurance of “money claims” and stricter regulation of firms that are allowed to issue money-like claims.