Eugene White, one of the most important financial historians in the United States, explains how history can contribute to current debates about banking regulation. By emphasizing the differences between the financial crises of the XIXe and of XXe century, he explains the causes of financial crashes, the legacy of Glass-Steagall Actand the future of the banking sector.
Eugene N. White is Professor of Economics at Rutgers University, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He is currently a member of the Centennial Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve. In addition to his work on the financial history of the United States, he has written numerous texts on the economic history of France, on topics ranging from the economics of the French Revolution to the costs of the Nazi occupation of France and Gaullist international monetary diplomacy.
Among his most important publications: The Regulation and Reform of the American Banking System, 1900-1929(Princeton University Press, 1983) ; Conflicts of Interest in the Financial Services Industry: What Should We Do About Them ? (CEPR2003, co-written with Andrew Crockett, Trevor Harris and Frederic Mishkin.) ; The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century(Chicago University Press, 1998, edited with M. Bordo and C. Goldin) ; And Housing and Mortgage Markets in Historical Perspective (Chicago University Press, 2014, with Kenneth Snowden and Price Fishback). He is also the co-director of the series CIF from the collection Financial and Economic History (Yale University Press).
He has published more than 60 articles on stock market booms and crashes, deposit insurance, banking regulation, and the war economy. In addition to his current work on the French financial crises of XIXe century, produced with Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur and Angelo Riva, he wrote on real estate and stock market booms and crashes, on the regulation and control of banks, and the evolution of the microstructure of the New York and Paris stock exchanges.
In this interview, he answers the following questions:
1) How does the current financial and banking crisis differ from previous historical crises ?
2) Are greed and short-sighted human behavior the main causes of financial troubles? ?
3) What can we learn from past banking regulations ?
4) What were the main political errors before and after the crisis ?
5) What should we do today ?
6) What is the current relevance of your work on the French financial crisis of 1889 ?
7) How do you see the future of the banking sector ?
Eugene White by laviedesidees